Project Miner

I’ve been playing video games again and it’s awesome.  I’m only getting about an hour of play at a time, due to being wicked busy with work and social/family stuff, but the brief times I do get to play are awesome. 

Currently, my favorite games are Call of Duty 2 and NBA Street Hardcore.  I call “Call of Duty” “Killing Germans”, because that’s pretty much all you do… at an amazingly fun and quick pace.  I’ve gone through the first two missions, where you are in the Russian campaign and then join the Brits and now am with the Americans storming Normandy.  Talk about intense and awesome.  The game designers did a great job of making your blood pressure rise in this one.  I really don’t think I’ve experienced more anxiety ridden moments than when I’ve accidentally stormed a room occupied with the Germans, hit the trigger button to start laying waste and get the ole “click”, then watch the slow reload because not only did I run into a room blindly, but I did so without reloading my gat.  It’s probably about two seconds to reload, but it feels like 10 full minutes.  I really hope my brain doesn’t replace the “last day of college and I have to pass an exam for a class I’ve been skipping, yet I don’t even know where the room is so I spend the whole time frantically trying to look up my schedule in the computer lab” dream with scenes of running into rooms full of Nazi’s without a loaded gat.  It’s that much anxiety.  I’m also amazed at how much satisfaction they were able to build into those moments when you pop out of cover and shoot somebody dead on from a good distance (and damn, the sniper stuff is wicked cool too).  I usually hate 1st person shooter type games, but killing germans is awesome.  Oh, and they scream funny german crap at you the whole time.

NBA Street is just a very well put together game.  I usually shy away from the “over the top unrealistic” sports games (which is why I’ve pretty much given up on video game baseball… I actually don’t want to hit 100 HRs in a season), but NBA Street is fun as hell.  You get to build a player through a career progression and battle street players and NBA players in all kinds of different modes.  I played the first version on the PS2 years ago, but somehow I’m still in buttom mashing mode and my players will pass or shoot at the wrong time and I’m not entirely sure why.  Though, when they all three jump up and pass the ball on dunk all over the place, it’s wicked fun.  This game also has the best music I can remember from a game.  It’s well mixed hip-hop and doo-doo-kak-kak stuff.

We’re taking a “baby moon” this weekend to Florida.  Originally we wanted to go to Mexico (Puerta Vallarta), but thought twice about having a 25 week pregnant woman in Mexico.  Even though we don’t follow the whole “you have to live in a bubble” mentality that people (doctors, family, random jerk off strangers) try to impress upon pregnant woman, we kind of thought it would be a good idea to be in the states and be able to speak the language and all that.  I wonder if fetuses (haha, that can’t be right… feti?  ha.) like the water in Mexico?  So, we went from “super super humid” Puerta Vallarta to “super humid” Florida.  Good thing Katy actually likes to be super hot. 

Anyhows, we’re going to Sarasota, Florida.  Neither of us have ever been there, but we read some decent reviews, and as long as it’s not at home and we can just sit around a pool or beach and relax, it’ll be awesome.  We’re actually staying at the Ritz (prices were pretty good, around $230/night), so we shouldn’t have a hard time being pampered.  We’ll probably get some kind of massage or spa thingy, but mainly we want to be by a beach or pool reading and drinking mai thai’s (virgin daquiries for Katy) and eating prime rib off the bone (or whatever would make me sound like a balla). 

I wanted to pick up the latest Michael Chabon book before going, but just didn’t get the chance.  Maybe I’ll buy it for $500 at the airport.  I’m also gonna finish the book about Babe Ruth and finally read Slaughterhouse Five.  I’ve got several still in the “to read” pile that I might bring along too… some Tom Robbins, Middlesex (which is now on Oprah’s book club, which makes me want to burn it), and some nerd/baseball stuff.  Haha, I’ll probably just sleep the entire time and not read a single page.  mmmm, vacation.

I’ve sold a few things lately using Craig’s List and Ebay.  I’ve used Ebay a lot, so I generally know what to expect there.  Craig’s List is a totally different stroy, since it’s just open listings and people tend to think if they are selling something it’s made of gold, but if they are buying something it should be free.  Here are some interesting tid bits…

I sold a 27″ Philips Magnavox TV after getting my new TV (37″ Vizio LCD).  I really just wanted to get rid of the old TV (it was truly old, it worked fine, but had ONE input – coax) so I listed it for $25.  I got about 12 responses in four hours.  Probably listed it too low.  The first responder flaked, so I called the second and she almost flaked but showed up the second day.  She saw the TV and said “it’s THIS TV for $25?!?”.  I said “you aren’t a negotiator are you?”.  For a minute I thought I was dumb for pricing it too low, but this woman was obviously not very wealthy (there is no way to say that without sounding elitist, especially while braggin’ about my new stuff) and she bought it for her 4 year old son’s room, so I felt pretty good about that.

I also sold Sunday’s Braves/Cubs tickets.  Katy wasn’t feeling good and the game was moved to 8:10 for ESPN coverage, meaning waking up at 5:30 Monday morning would be tough, so I decided to sell them.  I listed them only about four hours before game time, and took five bucks off the price.  I got a response immediately saying “I’ll take them for free so they won’t go to waste”.  Errr, yeah, I would have gone to the game and had an extra seat for my food before I wasted them.  I got a call about two hours later from a guy wanting them who asked “are you a Cubs fan or Braves fan”?  I told him jokingly that if he was a Cubs fan the price would triple, and he said “no way, I’m a Braves fan!” and went into a big diatribe about the team.  “Ok, that was weird, but baseball fans are typically a little nuts”, I thought and went to meet him with the tickets.  He gets out of his car, decked out in Cubs gear from head to toe.  I say “wow, you’re some Braves fan” and he says “well, things change”.  What an oddly jerky response for something that doesn’t matter at all.  Maybe he thought I’d really triple the price?  He was obviously retarded, so that is certainly possible.  Since I’m not so quick witted, I just said “oooh weee” and took his money and drove off.  Weird.  The Braves won the game, so take at least he didn’t enjoy the seats.

The best has been trying to sell my PS2 and all the games.  I listed it after buying an XBox 360 from Thomas, and got about 8 responses.  Most were super cheap people trying to low ball the hell out of me ($50 cash for the whole package, etc) and two were people wanting me to ship it internationally and asking for my paypal info.  I responded with something like “I am only selling locally and for cash, you can pick it up and ship it out yourself, but I’m afraid of getting scammed”.  The first person never responded and the second left me this gem: “ok.got to hell with ur fucking playstation”.  Ahhh, stupid people.  I took the high road and didn’t respond to ask what “got to hell” meant.  I’ve decided I’m going to beat my kid if it uses internet reject shorthand like “ur” for “your” and the like (Though “wtf” is pretty useful.  Also doesn’t “ur” read more “u r” or “you are”?  Whatever, I guess I shouldn’t expect this reject to understand the difference between “your” and “you’re”, or even care that there is a difference (And now time for everybody who reads this to point out all my grammar and spelling errors)). 

Just a quick entry to recap everything that’s gone on in the last week or two.

Memorial Day was pretty relaxing, just did some work on the house, touching up parts of the stairs and more rearranging and organizing.  I channeled Mom when painting the walls and stairs this time.  She taught me how to paint edges without taping, but I was always too scared to try it.  This time, I was too lazy to tape, so I thought I’d try it on the wall first and it actually worked out really well.  Got nice sharp edges everywhere and didn’t need the tape.  Didn’t even spill or goof up like I usually do!  I’m still amazed it worked out so well.

Last week I was in DC at the courts and was pretty busy the whole time — both with business and socially.  Tuesday night I got to see JAmy’s new awesome mansion with a huge private roof deck.  Seriously awesome place, and I’m much the jealous.  The neighborhood wasn’t murdery at all, as the emails passed around made it seem.  There’s a little g-fab strip mall down the street, but it’s apparently being honkey-ized and torn down soon.  That night I went and picked up Thomas’ XBox 360 that almost cost him his job.  Hopefully it won’t cost me mine.  Wednesday and Thursday night went to Dodgers/Nats games with Jol.  First night was a miserable shut out, second night was an offensive explosion.  Both games were a lot of fun, and I love Jol’s seats (upper deck, but that seems better at RFK for some reason), so it was a good time.  Great trip, but I ate too many hot dogs and did too little gym activity (“none” counts as “too little”, right?).

This weekend, relaxed and ran a ton of errands.  I was pooped on Friday (for some reason, the travel home always exhausts me more than the travel there) so we didn’t do anything, other than finish Entourage season 3.  Saturday, ran errands and spent some time with Katy’s family playing cards (woot, I was the big winner at spades, take that!).  Sunday, we just ran around getting ready for the kitchen remodel (tear down started today).  We basically had to pack up all our crap just as you would if moving.  Boo on that.  We’ve setup a college dorm room style kitchen in the dining room and are prepared to eat take out for a while.  Sigh.  But, a new kitchen will be the good stuff.  Somehow that doesn’t calm my anxiety enough, though.  Oh, and we got some frozen dumplings (home friggin’ made) and some fried chicken from Veronica and Josh over the weekend.  Woot to the woot.  I ate two pieces of chicken for lunch yesterday.  mmmm, old cold fried chicken and a soda.  That’s what I’m talking about.