Why haven't I wrote?

Why haven't I wrote? That's a very good question, one which is likely to be pondered for some time. That is, assuming I ever become a famous author and every little nuance of my life is pored over by ravid fangirls. Or fanboys, but I prefer fangirls, if you catch my drift.

Was it because I attempted and failed NaNoWriMo (the, write-50,000-words-in-the-30-days-of-November challenge)? Nope... circumstances, actually, failed me. I would have finished, if A) I didn't have to babysit newbies at work, and B) my motherboard didn't fry at home. So, no way to write.

The truth is much simpler. To quote an often-wiser man than I, my brother... "fuck it". I just felt no desire to post. I had plenty to say, just chose to express it in other ways.

There's really nothing else to be said, which is why I've taken the rare action of disallowing comments. That will not be the norm.

Saying Goodbye to My 20s

So, in 20 minutes, I turn 30 - at least, according to the calendar. At midnight it will technically be the 21st of September, and I was technically born on the 21st of September in 1979, so that'd make me 30, right? Well, not exactly. Close enough. See, I was born at 10-something at night in California. Here in North Carolina, when I was born in CA, it was already the early morning of the 22nd of September. Jen hates when I bring this up. If I had been out here for my 21st birthday, technically I would be able to drink a day early, legally. In another day it won't matter anyway.

I'm always thinking about statistics, the first this, the last that. Jen was the first one to drive the new car. Our niece and nephew (her brother's kids) were the first kids to ride in it (and probably the first people to ride in the back seat). I think we made "Beg" by Evans Blue the first song we listened to in it. That or "The Pursuit" (also by Evans Blue). First place we ate after getting it was Cracker Barrel. Just useless trivia. In January of last year, I promised myself I'd lose a whole lotta weight by around this time. Didn't happen. Diet didn't last long, but I'm eating better. I've given up soda and alcohol almost altogether. I still love some pizza, and macaroni and cheese, but I'm eating the mac & cheese less. And I'm eating salad every now and then. So small changes definitely beat fad diets. The results won't be as quick, though.

When I started my 20s, I had no car and no drivers' license. I was either working in retail or manufacturing in a clean room, but I was either about to change jobs or had just done so. I can't remember where I was when the world was supposed to end, but didn't. The geeks said the world was going to end at the year 2000 to sell computers. The Mayans only wrote their last calendar until December 20, 2012, and they weren't selling anything, but there could be any number of reasons why their calendar stopped so close to the end of this decade, but the guy who did Independence Day and the American Godzilla remake is making a 2012 movie, so somebody's making some bank.

In 1999, I hadn't even had a steady girlfriend, or any for that matter, or any chances with girls and women who were just friends. I'd watched my brothers hit and miss in love and relationships, but never had any of my own. Got plenty of female attention, but only at family reunions and whatnot where every kid in the room wanted to be carried around. So not the kind of attention I needed. Ten years later, I'm happily married. In 1999, I hadn't even been outside the state of California. Now, not only do I live on the other side of the country, I've visited 18 states plus DC and including the state I moved to (North Carolina). I spent almost 60% of my 20s in CA and almost 40% in NC - the move was around my birthday. In just four years here I've had a couple locals tell me I know my way around their home state better than they do. I had nearly shoulder-length hair in 1999, but since 2003 I've kept it buzzed within half an inch.

In 1999, I was using a computer my father - who passed away in 2002 - gave me for graduating high school (in 1998). Now I'm using a computer (at home) that I built myself in 2005. Four and a half years later it's still a solid machine. Tech breakdown of the two computers:

Processor: 200 MHz vs. 2 GHz (2,010 MHz)
System memory: 32 MB vs. 2 GB (2,000 MB)
Video card: 16 MB vs. 256 MB
Total available hard drive space: 18 GB vs. 1.4 TB (1,400 GB)
Optical drive: CD Reader vs. CD and DVD Burner
Floppy drive: Yes vs. No
Memory card support: No vs. Four multi-readers
Display: 15" vs. 19"

So the computer has gotten better, and I was still using VHS for movies in 1999. Now I've replaced my entire VHS collection with DVDs and I'm looking at a move to Blu-ray.

Well, there's midnight. And, life goes on...

Bought Our First New Car

Pretty sure I didn't post about my last car, the 1996 Ford Contour, going out back in March or April. For reasons unknown, it blew a head gasket and was in the shop for a full month getting fixed. Well, despite being "fixed", it blew the head gasket again a week ago, last Saturday morning as I got off work. Granted, I left the water cap off when I put water in it, but that couldn't have been the only thing, as it had been acting up for a while. Plus, when we got the water back in it and the reservoir covered, it continued to act up, so either something wasn't done right before, and/or the guy who owned it before was overly rought with it. It's probably a bit of both.

The problem with buying a used car, whether you buy it from a private citizen or a dealership, is in ten out of ten cases, you are buying somebody else's problem. They had some reason for getting rid of it. OK, there's the occasional story about the widow who's selling her husband's car, which works perfectly, just to rid herself of the memory... but that's also a one in a million shot. If you buy a used car, you can expect that something is wrong beyond what you're being told, if you're told anything at all. And I wasn't. I was told it was normal for Fords to idle so roughly; I was told that it didn't need a thermostat or an oxygen sensor; I was told that it was OK for the "check engine" light to be on; I was told that it was "all in my head". Clearly it wasn't, as the car can't be driven five miles without inexplicably dying. But, it served its purpose. My 1987 Acura Legend was a good car, and lasted me just over six years, before the engine jumped timing and bent the valves. I didn't expect to keep that Contour long, but it lasted me until I was able to get something better. No hard feelings in any case, but it is what it is, it isn't what it ain't, and now I do have something better, so it's all good.

So, we decided to see what it would take to get a new car. I've driven a lot of cars, mostly for work, but also through rentals. In 2006 we rented a 2007 Subaru Impreza to drive to Connecticut and back. In 2008 we rented a Dodge Grand Caravan for the same trip, a 2008 or 2009. In 2007, when we visited California, we rented a 2008 Nissan Versa hatchback, and I really liked it. So we made our first stop Greenville Nissan, just to see what we could do. Well, we met with a salesman, he showed us the lot, we looked at Versa sedans and hatchbacks, and we picked out a black hatchback. My credit was ran, and yes, he said, they could put us in a new car, especially if we participated in the recent economic/environmental stimulus plan "Cash for Clunkers" the government just started doing this week (great timing, eh?). If the new car gets 5-9 miles to the gallon more than the trade-in, it's worth $3500. If the new car gets 10 or more miles to the gallon more, it's worth $4500. And the trade-in must be 25 years old or less, it can't be a classic. We qualified for the first tier with Chuggy (Jen's car). (The Contour would not have qualified.) But we were told to come back the following morning, as they were about to close.

Well, we managed to get out of bed at 9AM (a previously unheard-of feat for us) and get to the dealership by 10, but we ran into a new problem. They wouldn't let me do the Cash for Clunkers program myself because Chuggy was in Jen's name. She couldn't sign it over to me, either, because it has to have been owned and operated for one year. And Nissan didn't like Jen's credit score. Oops. So what they had to do is, put us both down as co-owners, but still, one co-owner having a score under the level they like (and the other just barely over it) didn't look good. When we had to leave for me to take Jen to work, however, they let us take the Versa, and told us the car had to be back by Thursday, at which point they should have it finalized. They woke me up the following morning (as I kept the phone in the room with me) and told me to bring it back Friday, and the paperwork would be finalized then, as Nissan had approved the credit. But the paperwork said Thursday, I told him, so we went to Greenville just for them to change one digit on a piece of paper.

The car has a 13.2 gallon tank, and it was full when we drove it off the lot Tuesday. Thursday night when I had to go to work, I'd put over 250 miles on it, and the tank was around a quarter tank. So I put $20 in. About filled it up, too. Shouldn't have put so much in, I later learned. Hindsight, 20/20 and all that. Anyway, yesterday morning, I get off at 7, I'm home by 7:40, in bed ten minutes later, and up with the alarm (or maybe just before?) two hours later. On two hours' sleep, I got dressed, and we went back to Greenville. Thankfully, Jen drove. She got a full nights' sleep, or close enough to it. Or at least she could have, having gotten off work at midnight the previous night. Three hours of waiting, finally we go into the office to sign the paperwork. 45 minutes or so later, we're the proud owners of a black 2009 Nissan Versa hatchback... that we'll be paying on for the next six years. Still, it has a 100,000 mile warranty, everything's covered except the gas and maintenance (oil changes are free, but we gotta pay for things like tire rotation, alignment, etc.).

So what's this bad boy got? Black exterior, cream interior, partial leather or pleather trim (don't care if it ain't real, it looks nice), cruise control, air conditioning (haven't had either in years), a six-disc CD changer with auxilliary input (for Mp3 players, or my phone) and six speakers (sounds good, too), rear-window wiper, his-and-hers keyless entry/power locks/keys, power windows and mirrors... Generally a nice car, but not fully loaded, either. But not the base model either, it's an SL. Oh yeah, automatic transmission, and a CVT transmission, which means "constantly variable transmission". You can't even feel it shifting, and when it's stopped but running, you can't even feel the engine running. It's also the first car I've owned with drink holders, so that's a big plus, as I drink a lot of coffee, soda, bottled water, etc. I intended to install deer warning whistles on the front, but they have to be glued on, and I just can't bring myself to do it. And I want a steering wheel cover, but I want a hard rubber one like I had in the Legend, and then the Contour, and the only cream-colored ones Walmart has are soft. I'll have to check Auto Zone and Advance Auto Parts. Maybe the Greenville Walmart. And we got a litter bag to put over the passenger seat. No more throwing trash on the floorboards in the back like we've done with previous cars, this car's staying nice as long as possible. Wish us luck with that one, we live in a swamp, just about, but I think I can keep it clean if I keep on it. It's a very nice-looking car, unlike, well... the Legend was classy, if you like the boxy 80s style, which I did, and still do. The Contour wasn't ugly, but it was boring. It was just OK. Looked like any other mid-90s Ford. Escort and Taurus looked the same, just shorter or longer.

Now we have a Reliable Car. Not one that we get in and hope it starts. We definitely have to worry about making the payments, but they aren't bad. What's gonna hurt is the insurance, since we have to have full coverage on it. And we don't know what that will be yet. Also - while I love this car - in a couple years, we'll both have built credit with Nissan, plus they have an automatic approval for current customers, so if we want, we'll be able to trade up. Maybe we'll get an Altima Hybrid. I don't know. It's too far ahead to think about. I'm just thinking, when this car is paid off, we'll have just celebrated our ninth anniversary, and we've just been married 3 years now. Hell, six years means 2015, and half the nuts in the world are sure the world ends on December 12, 2012. Just like it did on January 1, 2000, I suppose.

Anyway, this means we're down to one vehicle. One blew up, and the other is getting recycled, to put a huge dent in what we owe Nissan. Well, Jen told her mother, and her mother's giving her her Jeep, since she recently picked up a new Dodge Caravan, very similar to the one we rented, perhaps a couple years older. It's just got a leaking transmission pan, cracked windshield, and the driver's side door does not register as closed, so either that fuse has to be pulled, or the battery must be disconnected, because the "you idiot, you left the door open" beeper will actually drain the battery. Her mom went with the latter, not sure why, maybe she couldn't find the fuse, maybe the problem's more than that, I don't know, but it'll be a cheaper and quicker repair than the Contour, and Jen's never been a Ford fan anyway. So we're selling the Contour back to our mechanic, who we bought it from, for an "open" sum (he's going to forgive what we owe on it, plus do some of the repair work on the Jeep for free, and sell the Contour for parts).

Oh yeah. Wanna see it? Here's our new baby:


As usual with pictures here, click on them to see them full-size.

Not all terrorists wear turbans

The Bush administration did a fine job of convincing the American people that terrorists and Muslims, or Arabs, or turbans are all the same thing, but it wasn't always so. When I was a kid, nobody cared about the Muslims, it was the Russians we feared, and the terrorists were Irish (the IRA). But regardless of whatever freedom fighters our government wants to vilify, all a terrorist is, is somebody who spreads terror. Someone who willfully causes mayhem. Blowing up buildings certainly qualifies, but it can be done on a personal level as well. It's not politically correct to say so, but many American citizens are guilty of terrorism. Maybe not at the same level of top al-Qaeda operatives, but they fit the dictionary description just the same. Observe:

As you might have seen on my status update thingy on the right, it's our 3 year anniversary being married. On the honeymoon, we went to Tennessee. On the first anniversary, Myrtle Beach, SC. Second, Connecticut. Third... we both had to work. And Jen had to take her mom to a doctor's appointment earlier in the morning, so she didn't even get to sleep, so she wanted me to bring her a soda and some water, since she had no money and her mom bought her a sub from Subway.

So I'm driving out to her workplace, which is almost to the end of a dead-end road. It didn't always used to be a dead-end, it's just being worked on, but for all intents and purposes, it's a dead-end road. There are a few posh houses before you get to her job, but between them and where she works is just a field. Past her job, there's a church of some kind.

Anyway, I get behind this dark SUV. The guy drives past the houses, but stops about halfway between them and the driveway to my wife's job's parking lot. Just stops. He glances at me in the rear view mirror like he expects something out of me. I figure he wants me to go around, like he wants to turn around. Like he didn't see the signs saying "Road Closed Ahead" and is just now realizing his mistake.

So I pull around him, and just as I get alongside him, he hits the gas and swerves into me. Well, not into me, rather at me, as I saw what he was doing and dodged him, tapping my horn to get his attention in case it was accidental, like maybe he was trying to turn around. I got out in front of him and continued on. Well, it wasn't accidental, and he wasn't trying to turn around - he followed me into the parking lot. I parked, but didn't cut the engine. He pulled in behind me and stared at me, but made no attempt to communicate. Didn't get out, didn't honk, didn't run into my car, nothing. Just sat there and stared.

Jen hadn't come out yet, so I left. Sure enough, the guy followed me. Ironically (or maybe intentionally?) when I got to the light, it was green, but another SUV, this one beige, was just parked there, making no move to go through the light. With the other guy coming behind me, I went around the parked SUV and sailed through the green light. I actually didn't see the dark SUV go through the light. Worried that he might smash some windows in some cars at my wife's job, I doubled back, ready to call 911 if I saw him again. I didn't.

So I met my wife, but kept an eye out for this American terrorist, but he never came back. I am hoping that he did not make the connection that I was waiting for somebody, and didn't start drinking, only to return and smash up the two cars I parked between in case one belonged to somebody I know. I'm hoping he assumed that I had no business in that parking lot and was just hoping I'd leave, so he could follow me to my true destination (which started to play out, but he may have been caught at a red light, which may not have deterred a terrorist hell bent on running people off the road in broad daylight, but oncoming traffic would have stopped him).

Maybe I should have reported this to the police. Maybe he had recently been fired from that place, maybe he drank on the job or something, and maybe, in his twisted mind, if he incapacitated a few people who worked there, an opening would have allowed him to get his job back. Who knows. But I sure felt like a character in a Dean Koontz book, like the nerdy Odd Thomas chased by beefy, faceless villains with murder on their mind.

In any case, I got home safe, I didn't see the guy as I was leaving, and my wife's reporting it to her boss. Apparently they have cameras, so if a car or two do wind up smashed up, they can hopefully review some footage and get an idea of who this guy is. Meanwhile, bin Laden's protoge got maybe a tenth of a gallon of gas extra out of me, but hopefully will get his sooner or later. His type usually do. Meanwhile, I am going to play some Oblivion!

36? Better make it 37.

Well, as you may know, as of tomorrow, Jen and I will have been married 3 years.

We originally wanted to go to the Outer Banks for our anniversary; we knew money would be tight, but we figured we could do that trip on the cheap, for $200 or less. Gas isn't getting any cheaper, of course, but it's not too far out there. The lodging would probably be the most expensive part. Between a room for the night, dinner, and gas both ways, and maybe a souvenir or two, we figured we could get out for a bit. Just one night.

Well, money was tighter than usual, so we put off making our plans until the last minute. Then, when Jen went to put in for the time off, she found out a backstabbing coworker she made the "acquaintance" of had heard about her anniversary, saw she hadn't put in for it, so took the day of, plus the day before and the day after off. So I guess as some petty, catty angry-woman kind of thing, she's celebrating my wife not being able to go anywhere for her anniversary. I tell ya, there are some messed up people in this world, but I'm not too worried, because aside from all the old adages about Karma (e.g. "what goes around comes around"), people who live on and feed off negative energy tend to have it follow them. I guess that's another adage about Karma, but it seems to be fairly true. Everyone has good days and bad days, but you can look on the brighter side of a bad day if you count your blessings and try to make the most of something.

Anyway, I got to thinking. Three years is 36 months. After the wedding, on the 7th of every month, we'd celebrate the anniversary to the month, though it got kinda old after 2 years. Well, she's one of Kevin Smith's biggest fans, and, as any of his fans will tell you, he has a certain affinity for the number 37. He wears a sports jersey, I forget what team or sport, but most likely a New Jersey team; it's where he's from. Anyway, the number is 37. It goes back to his first film, "Clerks.", and it's kind of a crude joke. If you don't get the reference, you can find it here.

So our 37-month anniversary is August 7, and that's a Friday. I have to work Friday nights, but I can get the night off if I ask far enough in advance. Even if I can't get the night off, I don't have to be at work until 11pm. Worst case scenario, they say no, and I go out to dinner, have a great evening, and then go to work. Not a big deal. I'd like to have the night off, but anyone who's punched a time card in the last year knows you can't mess with work, not in this economy. So if they tell me I gotta work... I gotta work.

(No, I didn't get the title wrong. The title is a reference to a line in another movie, Road Trip, just with the numbers changed. The correct quote is "Two fingers? Better make it three.")

Rock Band Tournament: Came in 3rd

The weekend before this past weekend, if you had asked me "What are you doing next weekend?" (referring to this weekend just past, that is) I would have said "Oh I don't know, probably staying home, maybe playing Rock Band with Jen and the guys."

I would have been half right, at least.

Anybody who's married can sympathize when I say that although my wife, her brother, and their friend were talking about this Rock Band 2 tournament for months, I had no idea about it until I read a MySpace bulletin where she said we were going to a Rock Band 2 tournament on Saturday and that she, her brother, and our friend were competing in said tournament.

Huh? What?

I love Rock Band, as anyone who reads my blog will tell you, but I'm not particularly good at it. I used to love Tetris, so you'd think a game with what amounts to falling bricks would be second nature, but while I'm good at Tetris when the blocks are falling slowly, when it speeds up real fast, it's a whole different story. Same with Rock Band. The game offers a decent challenge on Medium, when the pace is fair and you only have four columns of notes (blocks) to hit, which goes with only four fingers to hit them with, one for each column. Expert, though, what you set it to for a tournament (since it's based on score), means not only do they fall a hell of a lot faster, but you add that fifth column as well. (I wonder if six-fingered folks find Hard and Expert to be easier than I do.) And if you want to know how to play the game, read one of my other blogs about it where I spend 2-3 pages describing it, read Wikipedia, or look it up on YouTube. This story's long enough without getting into all of that. But suffice it to say that while I enjoy playing songs I like on Medium, I am not tournament material.

The tournament is in Goldsboro, at the Wayne Community College, a good hour and a half away, so I agree to drive. Then come to find out it's at 10:00 in the morning. And the car needs gas. And we need batteries for the camera. And Jen wants McDonald's sausage gravy and biscuits for breakfast. Bad preparation meant that while she was at work Friday evening, I should have got the batteries and got gas. But I didn't think to for whatever reason. No, I stayed home. When Jen got home, we went over to her brother's to practice. She and Robert (her brother) and Carl (our friend) practiced, while I tried not to fall asleep. I did not play because I had no intention of playing at the tournament. I, like Robert's girlfriend, was just going for support and picture-taking (and driving). When we got home, I stayed up studying the directions on the computer. Google sent electric cars all over the country with camera kits on top, so that you can get panoramic photos of the roads all across America (in most areas) (and where was I when they were looking for drivers?) so I was noting landmarks and whatnot.

I got somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half of sleep.

Naturally, Jen's alarm woke me. She got up a half hour earlier than we planned to take a shower. I had taken one the day before, so I was good. (She probably had too, but she was in this tournament, she wasn't about to not go in looking her best.) We left at a quarter, maybe half past seven in the morning. That's seven hours after she got off work. Four hours since we left her brother's house from practicing (and him playing Ninja Gaiden II). And about two hours since we went to sleep, having been up all Friday and Friday night. One hour of good sleep and maybe half an hour of rest.

I love Google, and Google loves Greenville, North Carolina. What Google has for Greenville, I'd say among my friends, but I wouldn't post up here because it's a crude sexual reference. No matter where you're going in Eastern NC, Google will recommend that you drive through Greenville, even if it's 30 miles out of your way. But Google is somewhat accomodating in that if they're giving you directions, you can grab part of the route and drag it to make waypoints. Greenville is northwest of us, and the tournament and Goldsboro are to the southwest of us. I figured the best bet would be to go through the small town of Ayden, as right on Highway 11 where we'd likely pass through, there's a few gas stations, a McDonald's, and a Food Lion (grocery store). Dragging a waypoint to Ayden resulting in Google telling us to go up to Greenville, down to Ayden, and then onto a new route to Goldsboro. The second half looked pretty direct, but they still had us going way out of our way to Greenville. A second waypoint between Ayden and us, in the even smaller town of Blackjack (which is almost directly between us and Ayden), set the course right, and only a couple minor modifications later, and we had our perfect route.

So it's 7:30AM at the latest, and we head out. Grabbed a couple Mountain Dews for the road (love that stuff) and we were good to go. Had my latest mix in the CD player (which I still need to blog about, it's a great mix), and the heater on, which takes a while to get going. We were nearly in Ayden when I took off my beanie (my wife calls it a toboggan, maybe that's the proper name, but they've always been called beanies where I'm from - sock hats otherwise). Got into Ayden, stopped at Food Lion for batteries (and M&Ms), got cash back to get in the door (no advance/Internet ticket sales for this - $10 a head to play or watch), and we were off again. We got there around quarter after 9:00 in the morning, at a time I'm usually going to sleep. The doors didn't open until 10:00 in the morning, but we were told to be there early. We were a little too early, but Rob and Carl were a little too late. We took separate cars, partly because Robert and I both like to drive, partly because nobody likes riding in the back seat, and partly because all three of them (Carl and Rob and his girl) smoke menthol cigarettes where both Jen and I are nonsmokers.

We got there, and the line was stupidly long. There were at least 100 people in line. At least. We got in line, and fell in behind some guys talking about various games. Every time I'd open my mouth to say something, Jen would shoot me a look to shut it. Wasn't long before I couldn't help myself, and the four of them and I were getting along great, talking about handheld games and how to modify them, comparing games, and whatnot, all very friendly. Shortly after we got in line, the line doubled in size, with as many people behind us as there were ahead of us, as people started coming in herds. We called Rob; he had taken a wrong turn and was still on his way. It was almost 11am when we finally got in the door. We paid $10 each for our passes and showed our IDs to allow us to play T-rated games such as Rock Band and, if we so chose, M-rated games like Halo 3 and Gears of War.

When we got in, it was your typical convention. Most of the booths set up were for the video game and peripheral industries. One was for a generic Guitar Hero game a student had made as a project. We saw costume players (cosplayers) as Darth Vader, a Stormtrooper, Boba Fett, and Princess Leia, all from Star Wars, and some various steampunk characters, perhaps from the Fallout games, I suppose. I wanted to ask them what the deal was but didn't. All of the arcades in the break room had been rigged for free play and three pool tables took quarters (75¢) to play. People were everywhere. Talking to the folks at the booths or to each other. Some had laptops and were online, some had PSPs and Nintendo DSs. I think I saw a Magic or Yu-Gi-Oh! game in the break room. We were told registration for the tournaments was upstairs, so upstairs we went.

The ground level of the Wayne Community College "Learning Center" (aka Student Center anywhere else) consisted of a lounge with arcades, a theater/auditorium, a cafeteria, the student bookstore (closed), and various offices (e.g. financial resources) (also closed). The second floor was a computer lab and seminar/meeting rooms. The third floor, off limits to us, was classrooms, and apparently a library as well. We called Rob again, and he had taken yet another wrong turn, and hadn't arrived yet, but was on the right road, so he was close. Jen registered for her spot in the Rock Band 2 tournament. We called Rob, who was now in line with his girlfriend and Carl, and we got some personal info from them so as to register accounts for them and then put them in the band. All three DysS\MemB/EreD members registered, we found the meeting room the Rock Band 2 playoffs would be hosted in.

The room was fairly small, with about 30 people inside, including three small children and a teenage boy, who turned out to be the tournament director's children (and at least 50 people right outside, trying to watch or listen). They had a projector and screen setup, with what looked like a brand-new Xbox 360 "Arcade" edition (the $199 one) and secondhand instruments, as well as the first and second game. (Why they had Rock Band 1 is beyond me. It was never used.) The instruments were all from Rock Band 1, however, and were all in shoddy condition. The tournament director came in, and among other things, noted that now "partial" bands would not be able to play. Any band with three or fewer members was free to recruit anybody at the tournament, but could not play with three or fewer members. In other words, we needed a bassist or we were out of the tournament.

We were one of the bigger partial bands, we later learned. There were a couple others with three, and there were 3-4 with only one member. But still, we couldn't find a single person who wanted to join our band. The other partial bands all folded, every one of them. The tournament director wasn't very sympathetic to a single one of them. We only had one choice. I had to register and join the band. I was able to register an account on their site at a computer in the room, but I had to go back to the computer lab to join the tournament, so I did. I tried to be all sly and text Rob that we had to get a bassist, but Jen had already spilled the beans.

Nine bands ended up ready. The director's assistant put six of them on the whiteboard, which was to be the makeshift leaderboards and bracket, until they could figure out what to do with the odd band. They went with the two-on-two format they agreed upon on the website prior to the event. Each band paired with one other band. Each band picked one song and each pair played both songs, highest score between the two songs advances. We were the sixth band, and we picked "New Kid in School" by The Donnas. The other band picked "Man in the Box" by Alice in Chains, despite the fact that the song was played during both of the prior pairings (thus had already been heard four times). The interesting thing about "Man in the Box" is that, like any song in Rock Band with cursing, it's censored, but unlike any other censored song, the bad words aren't removed, they're replaced. The song features two instances of the word shit, and first it's replaced by pit ("I am the man in the box, buried in my shit" becomes "...buried in my pit") and second it's replaced with spit ("I am the dog who gets beat, shove my nose in shit" becomes "...shove my nose in spit"). The nice thing about this is that if the singer sings the original, correct, profane words, the game reads it right because shit, spit, and pit all sound the same (to it). And every band up to and inlcuding us sang the lyrics with the clean words out of respect for the kids. The band we were playing against sang the words profane, but they failed "New Kid in School" because their male vocalist couldn't handle the female vocals.

Then an interesting thing happened. A tenth band was introduced before the ninth band, called "D-Squad", featuring the youngest of the children on vocals and her brothers on the three instruments. She could not read, so the tournament director called on a spectator to assist her. The director chose "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor (the game's easiest song) and the other band chose Rise Against's "Give it All", the hardest song played. The kids barely passed "Eye of the Tiger" but, quite naturally, failed the Rise Against song. The other band beat both songs and advanced to the next round.

Round two. The tournament director decided that two songs per pairing would take too long and that people had taken too long to decide their songs. He picked "Drain You" by Nirvana, an easy song from the first or second difficulty tier. But then we were faced with another odd number. Five bands had advanced from Round 1. The first four bands, including us, paired up. The band who beat the kids was given a pass to the finals. Yes, this tournament, this self-proclaimed "Summit", advanced a band to the finals for the stunning achievement of besting a band formed right on the spot who had little or no practice, whose average age was eight and whose vocalist could not read. It was about 3pm now, four hours after we got there, but only a little over 2 hours since we started. We were told to return at 5pm for the finals, which would be held in the auditorium, in front of an audience.

Great. I was under the impression that the tournament would only last until 2-3pm. I was thinking, win or lose, we'd go home, I'd catch about 4 hours of sleep, and then we'd all get together to drink and play Rock Band until about 4-5 in the morning, or until everybody left. So now we bothered to read our flyers they gave us at the door, and it turned out following the finals at 5, there would be an award ceremony at 8, and we were expected to be there. By now, we were guaranteed at least some measure of victory. There were three bands left. We were guaranteed third place. No one who went to the finals was leaving empty handed. So we made a run for the border - Taco Bell, that is. Got some plain-old crunchy tacos and a chicken Gordita; Jen got a small order of nachos and a taco supreme or two. Jen fell in love with Code Red Mountain Dew a few years back, but not the kind they can or bottle, only the fountain version, which only Taco Bell had, which made Taco Bell her favorite fast-food joint. They stopped carrying it and she stopped going. I figured out how to make it. A splash of the fruit punch and fill the cup with regular Mountain Dew. That's all it is. Tastes exactly the same. Now she loves Taco Bell again. I miss Subway, but I don't mind Taco Bell (used to be my favorite place to go). So. We ate our food, and headed back to the college. Hung around for a bit, then headed to the auditorium at the designated time.

The finals were a mess. The difference between an auditorium and a theater, I came to understand, is a theater is just a silver screen bordered by curtains. Sometimes the curtains close over the screen, but I haven't seen that in years. An auditorium features a stage you can get up on via stairs on either side, the curtains close, and the screen is optional. The screen was present in this one, full size, so movies could be shown here. What they had done was placed us at stage left (audience's perspective) not quite off stage, but not quite on stage either. They had set up a table with a tiny little 20" or so TV and the Xbox, with the instruments behind it. Somehow the Xbox was sending its video signal to the TV but also its video and audio to the projector in the room at the back of the auditorium, which was projecting the image on the screen behind us. As you've probably seen, a typical Rock Band 2 screen with the full band playing is one guitarist on the left, the other on the right, the drummer in the middle, and the vocalist on top. The vocals track is horizontal anyway, and on the bottom 3/4 of the screen you have the three note highways side by side. How we were positioned, you simply couldn't see the left track, and the light from the projector was blinding us. Not only that, the floor was freshly waxed and the drum kit, I later learned, was getting away from our drummer. Not just ours mind you, the other two bands had this problem as well, though they did a better job of overcoming the odds. Oh, the song. "Today" by the Smashing Pumpkins. How we came to that conclusion was, we'd tell the game to give us a Random song (this is an option) and the 12 of us (3 bands * 4 members each) would each have the option to veto it. A couple songs came up, I can't remember, maybe easy, maybe hard, maybe "Painkiller" (by Judas Priest, one of the hardest songs on the game), I don't recall. "Today" came up and nobody said no. It's an easy song, it's popular, people know it - why not? I had no problem with it, but the setup of the game and everything was a mess, and we scored a very modest 300,000 and some change. The next band scored in the 500,000's, and the third band - the one who beat D-Squad, actually, handed all of us our asses with a score of roughly ours and the other band's put together.

We came in third.

But, we got to go to a town we'd never been to before. We had a good... We had a GREAT time. We competed in a tournament for our mutual favorite game (not mine - theirs - but I do enjoy playing it enough) and we met some good people - not one jerk in the lot. We got out of the house and did something we'd never done before and probably won't do again, at least for some time. It's not every day a video game tournament rolls through your neck of the woods. This particular lot announced its intention to come back, same place, roughly same time of year, in 2010. We'd like to come back, but we'd like assurances that the shortcomings this year will be addressed next year.

Awards ceremony at 8pm. There were a lot of games besides Rock Band 2. Guitar Hero World Tour for instance, as well as Halo 3, Gears of War, Madden '09, Mario Kart for the Game Cube (not sure the official name, just saw it played), Call of Duty 4, Call of Duty 5, and many others. Each would have its winners, as many as 3 each or 3 teams/squads each. We had no idea when we'd be called. Most bottled liquor in North Carolina is sold by government-run stores cleverly named "ABC Package Store" and they close at 9pm at the latest. Some as early as 7pm. It was about 5:30; we had no idea where to get liquor after dark in a town we'd never been in. Here's where my keen sense of navigation should have been of assistance, but wasn't. We were on Wayne Memorial Drive, a few miles off the main highway in the area. We knew we were on the outside of town, so we went back to the highway, me driving and Jen looking for ABC stores. (Hey, I wanted some rum and she wanted some tequila.) We left town via Wayne Memorial Drive, having passed a road called Ash Street, which I do remember from the map as being the main road in Goldsboro. We came back to it and I took a guess. Wound up outside of town in relative short order. Turned around, passed Wayne Memorial Drive and took it the other way. Bit longer, but we left town again. No liquor stores, but again, we'd passed another busy road, so we took it in one direction. Luck held up - road outta town. Turn around, past Ash, back into Goldsboro. (Any Goldsboro residents reading this are probably laughing their asses off - I bet we passed a half dozen liquor stores by then.) This was Berkely Road or Boulevard. About to leave town, I pulled into a gas station, and we asked the attendant for directions to the nearest liquor store. She gave them, and we were off again, and this is where it gets funny. Jen could have sworn we passed a Walmart coming into town, and the liquor store is across from Walmart. We follow the directions, get to the Walmart, and look where we are. Right off the freeway. In other words, we get our liquor, which we drove about 30-40 minutes to get, and inside of 5 minutes, via the freeway, we're right back at the school. Lovely, eh? Had we known we could just jump on the freeway back towards home, take the very next exit, and search the area, we'd be putzing around the school for another 45 minutes having the time of our lives. Right.

Well, we got back, and we still had a good hour to kill. Jen and her brother played pool. His girlfriend and Carl smoked outside, and I bounced back and forth between the two groups. Jen and I were having a great time, but the rest were bummed out that we didn't do better, and Rob's girlfriend was downright irate at what she was probably about to call a conspiracy to usher one band through the playoffs, never mind that they were actually better than us, perhaps better prepared, who knows, maybe their instruments at home were in excessive disrepair as well and they were ready to overcome that hurdle. Jen and I buy our Rock Band and Xbox gear from Best Buy, and we pay for the warranty. Something goes bad, they replace it. It's that easy. Rob buys his stuff from Gamestop. If something goes wrong, he can send it off to Microsoft to be worked on and he's without an Xbox for a few weeks (though, a couple days before the tournament, his 360 got the Three Red Rings of Death - catchy name, that - and his girl bought a brand-new one, planning to return the new Xbox when the broken one comes back from the shop). I don't think any of us were actually happy that we came in third, but at the best of times we were willing to concede that at least we made it to the finals, at least we had a good time.

We go into the auditorium, take our seats - actually, some savage looking for a handout swoops in and takes Jen's seat right from under her, and Rob's girlfriend ended up having to temporarily share a seat with him as we couldn't get anyone on either side to move over (despite open seats on either side, because, God forbid, you know, a group sit together, right). Anyway, we were all pleased that Rock Band 2 was the first game announced, and being in third place, we were the first band announced. We were marched up on stage, announced by band name and first and last names, all of us but Rob's girlfriend, each given a bronze medal which unceremoniously read "3rd", ushered to the back, and given a goodie bag with four posters and God knows what else inside. Rather than take our seats again, we simply exited, better to avoid the traffic, we figured, and checked out our goodie bag. The poster was for Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, a game none of us cared about much (though, for a while, I had the demo, though, because it was free). Couldn't be Guitar Hero: Metallica, but oh well. Four shirts. Two Medium, two Extra-large. I wound up with an XL, but swapped it for a M. I'm gonna re-gift it, and I can't say to whom because that would spoil the surprise. Also inside the bag was a guitar skin, though not for a Rock Band guitar, but for a Guitar Hero guitar. The best prize though, was on the way out, we were given a case (10-pack) of Vitamin Water. I guess they were the main sponsor. Actually the best prize was the good time we had, but I've said all that a few times already, no need to be (too) repetitive.

The five of us parted ways, Rob and his girlfriend and Carl in Rob's car; Jen and I in ours, and headed for home. We offered to get together and play Rock Band (ha ha) but none of them were up for doing anything but sleeping, though they'd gotten far more of it than we had. Wusses, lol. Then again, Robert was probably up at 6am Friday morning seeing his daughter off to school. No telling if he'd had a nap during the day or how long Carl or Rob's girlfriend had been up. (If anyone's curious by now, I'm not posting her name because she asked Jen not to post any pictures with her in them (or to cut/blur her out) so I'm extending a similar courtesy here. She probably told work she was doing something far more charitable than accompany her boyfriend, his sister, her husband, and their friend to a Rock Band tournament. Oh well.

Update: It's now early Tuesday morning as I write this extension of the story. We were so sore and tired when we got up Sunday afternoon. I had to work that night, too. We barely had time to run the errands we intended to run, and I had no time to cook dinner to take to work. So, instead we picked up a pizza at Walmart (Walmart deli pizza is awesome by the way) and I baked that, cut it and ate it at work. Good stuff. Though I would like to ask the Waltons what "beef product" is, that it says is on the pizza on the box. I am not joking. Go to their deli and look at the all-meat pizza, see what it says is on it. It's good though.

At some point (the next couple days kinda ran together) I made two postings on the CarolinaGameSummit.com forums, the official site for the tournament. One called out all the Rock Band 2 players. I told them that we didn't get enough time to play and we knew they didn't either, so we posted our Xbox Live gamertags, so they could add us as friends and play us online, if they chose. Good guys, all of 'em, I figured it would be awesome if we kept in touch until the next tournament, practiced together, and had a better tournament next year. I also posted Jen's, Carl's, and my MySpace pages (Rob hasn't got one) in case they wanted to contact us that way. The other post was much longer, not only detailing everything that was wrong with the tournament, but also a suggestion for how it could be better next year, addressing each and every problem. The tournament director (forums username DigitalRecruiter) read my post and only had one misunderstanding; it turns out he thought I was insulting his daughter by pointing out that she couldn't read. I apologized for the misconception and explained that I was only making the point about them pushing a band who bested kids through to the finals and reiterated that it was admirable and inspiring that he was allowing his kids to play the game. I also figured that if that was the only problem he had with my post, hopefully the other issues would be addressed for next year, and I hinted at that inference as well. Hopefully it wasn't in vain. Also, the band who bested D-Squad and won the tournament joked, on the forums in another topic, that they wished they had had better competition and would have been allowed to play more songs (in fact they played one fewer song than the other two finalist bands as they skipped the "Drain You" round). Overall it was good sportsmanship on part of the players and a lack of planning on part of the folks running the show. On top of the shortcomings of the Rock Band 2 tournament, players from virtually every other game showcased at the tournament had a long list of complaints. And virtually nobody said that the game they came to play went off without a hitch.

All in all, the 2009 Carolina Games Summit was a failure and an embarassment to the gamers, and possibly the sponsors as well. However, it was a lot of fun. It brought a lot of cool people together. And I really do hope that if the same people do the tournaments again next year, that they learn from their mistakes.

A short summary of my suggestions for improving things, as the problems are mostly mentioned here, I think it's only fair to point out the solutions I suggested. As it relates to the lines, they could have had outdoor entertainment for those in the line and could have facilitated ticket sales better. Let people buy them online and register online, and merely confirm their registration on arrival. Would have been much faster. As for the nine teams, do groups of three instead of two. Have D-Squad open the playoffs and/or the finals but not actually compete, let alone be the means for a band to advance straight to the finals. (That little girl could have sang any Hannah Montana or iCarly song she liked if they'd picked "Testify" by Rage Against the Machine; the way the vocals are set up on that song (and a few others) are such that all you have to do is say something, anything.) For the finals, we should have been performing behind the curtain and the drums placed on a mat of some kind. They could have rented or bought working guitars. We could have used Guitar Hero instruments. Rock Band 2 recognizes them and they're sturdier (despite the game software being inferior). Too many spectators made the room crowded; they could have limited the spectators or cycled them through.

In closing, it was our first video game tournament. All four of us. My youngest brother, who's always been better than me at video games, has never competed in a tournament (I asked). I wasn't even a proper member of the band, but following this tournament, I'm going to start practicing with the guys and Jen. They actually had two prior bassists but became a dedicated three-piece band when both flaked out on them too many times. Well, I won't do that. When I can, I'll play bass for them, and next year, we'll be a well seasoned four-piece virtual rock band, and DysS\MemB/EreD will go for first.

Well, I'm 29 now... (The Rock Band cake post)

But don't all say Happy Birthday all at once. I'm not too thrilled with the prospect of only 365 days until I hit the big three-zero.

I've had a lot of cool birthday presents, but few match the cake Jen made for me this year. As some of you might know, I like to play Rock Band using the Guitar Hero X-Plorer controller to play bass guitar.

Wanna see it? Oh, I know you do...



This is it before it's finished, but the picture also shows the actual Guitar Hero controller for comparison. Here's the finished product:


Body... The D-pad is made up of a ring of chocolate frosting and four M&Ms. The whammy bar is a Pocky stick (Mexican shortbread stick dipped in chocolate), and the strum bar is a Kit-Kat. The green M&M represents the Xbox guide button, and the other two halves represent the Back and Start buttons.


Neck and head... each of the five fret buttons is represented by four M&Ms of the same color. The tuning knobs at the head are represented by four brown M&Ms - we didn't have room for all six.


The whole finished project.

If you want to see more pictures of the cake, for a limited time you can see the topic I made on GameFAQs' Food board. I say limited time because after so long of a post not getting replies, they'll purge it. I can re-post the other pictures here, I just haven't got the time right now.

And as with all pictorial blogs I post, you can click any image to see it full-size, if you'd like a closer look.

Oh yeah... under the frosting, it's a Devil's Food cake... mwa ha ha ha ha. It was good... We served it with Breyers Triple Chocolate ice cream.

Waiting for Tropical Storm Hanna

So, the past 24 hours or so we've been waiting for this storm that kinda didn't happen.

Yesterday morning, I got off work. Pretty clear conditions. I stayed up for a while thinking something might happen early (I kind of had my facts wrong, too - it happens).

Finally get some sleep, but we wake up kinda early. Got maybe 4 hours sleep tops. Because we're still expecting this thing to happen sometime today.

Then we get the info that Hanna's supposed to make landfall at 2am around Wilmington (for those not from here, it's a coastal town near the NC/SC border) and at around 2am Sunday morning, it's supposed to be long gone, through Virginia. OK.

We go to the store for some stuff, thinking we were going to need to stock up and all that good stuff. The local Food Lion has these metal shutters over their windows, not real shutters but rather some kind of paneling they just threw up real ghetto-like. I wish I'd gotten pictures. Oh, and a sign that said "Yes we're open", one of those Coca-Cola banners smaller stores have. Epic fail for not saying "I assure you we're open" ("Clerks." reference). It didn't even need to be shoe polish on a bedsheet, just the words - would it be too much to ask? Oh well. We scored the bare necessities. You know... bread, milk, bologna, cheapo frozen pizzas, Whoppers (Hershey's, not Burger King's), etc.

We get home. Still no rain. It's a pretty nice day out. Hardly a cloud in the sky. And everyone's making like it's Hurricane Floyd (1999) all over again.

We decide to make it a movie night. First up was Layer Cake, a pretty good British gangster flick starring Daniel Craig (the recent James Bond) and Colm Meaney (best known as the transporter chief and handyman from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine). I love seeing Star Trek actors curse, drink, do drugs, or otherwise engage in behaviour they never would on a G/PG television program.

Then we watched WWE Friday Night SmackDown! on the DVR. Decent show, but it sucks Mick Foley's no longer on commentary, I loved his personal style. And that Edge is taking a break (read: Undertaker sent him to Hell at Summerslam), he always puts on a good show. Undertaker's uber-awesome dramatic entry was interrupted by a storm update, which of course we skipped because it was by then three hours outdated. We got treated to a pretty good match between MVP and Shelton Benjamin, two heels who usually put on good matches. Jeff Hardy's talents got wasted on a mostly worthless act they call "The Brian Kendrick". The guy's got talent, but in trying to build him as a heel, they just have him steal matches. Boring. Shelton Benjamin is a heel and still puts on good matches, but then he's established. Main event sucked - long story short, Triple H got punk'd by half the locker room. Boring. He still pinned Khali after a Pedigree. Oh, and there were a couple Diva matches.

Checked the weather again. Nothing too big, still pretty calm.

Next movie up, Ready to Rumble. SmackDown! didn't really fulfill our pro wrestling fix, so we watched this 90 minute ad for WCW (WWE's competition in the 90s which they now own). Pretty good movie along the lines of Joe Dirt. A couple of losers travel 3 hours to see a taping of WCW Monday Nitro only to see their hero lose his title, so they track him down and find out he's an even bigger loser than they are, but they don't give up, ultimately taking him to Las Vegas in an attempt to win his belt (and respect) back. It was better than I thought it would be at the start - and half an hour in. For a while it was looking pretty bad. I'm not sure if it gives a better or worse depiction of pro wrestling than exists in reality. I really need to read more books on the backstage politics and technical side; while I do enjoy watching as a fan, I'm much more interested in the production of the show. (Yes, I'd love to work for WWE - just as a tech guy though. Meeting some of the legends and superstars wouldn't be a bad bonus either.)

So anyway, movie ends and my wife pretty much declares the storm a no-show and heads to bed. And here I am, 6:30 in the morning, typing away the PG-side of the night's events. I'm hearing a bit of wind outside, but looking at wunderground.com's live radar, which is even better than what they show on TV (Google Maps with a live radar = pure win) and it looks like TS Hanna went farther inland than originally anticipated. It's probably pretty wet in Raleigh, and Greenville might be seeing some drippage, but it's still mostly dry here. We've had some light rain.

Here's a screenshot of wunderground's map, with some notes of my own.



The red circles is about where TS Hanna hit land, just south of Wilmington. I think technically the eye of the storm landed on our side of the border, but I'm not sure. Close enough anyway, and I'm sure Myrtle Beach (SC city/tourist trap just south of the border) got hit with some rainfall earlier. It actually hasn't reached Raleigh yet, but should any time now. The thin red lines are my guesses (from having watched it all night) as to where the worst of it will go. The red star (directly south of Washington) is approximately where we are. Chocowinity, NC - zip code 27817 - if you'd like to look it up.

We will get wet by the time it's passed us by, but it won't be as bad as we thought.

What we have to worry about is Hurricane Ike, which is right behind Hanna. Earlier I mentioned Hurricane Floyd, but people who were here when that hit said it wasn't even that bad, it's just that it too was right behind another hurricane, Dennis, so the one-two punch is what did the damage. We've got a tropical storm followed by a hurricane followed by a tropical storm (Josephine's the third one). And of course it all depends on what path they will follow when they reach us. Experts are almost certain it'll hit Florida, but the question is whether it will follow the Atlantic seaboard up and hit the Carolinas or continue through the Gulf and tear up the Gulf states. And then there's Josephine, can't forget about that one.

It's not too tough tracking the storms, really. You see these guys on TV and they sound so smart, but nowadays Joe Citizen has access to many of the same resources. You can use the more popular weather.com (The Weather Channel) but I find wunderground.com to be more direct, easier to get at the relevant information for a quick drive-by check. Or you can be a real nerd and check both. But tracking storms isn't the important part, preparing for them is. Both phones charged, we have water, we have food, we have flashlights. As long as we have power, we can watch the news or go online for information, but if we lose power, we have the Net on our phones. No live radar or any bells and whistles, but we can get basic info.

So to our friends and family, we're safe from Hanna, I think it's safe to say. Ike and Josephine though... we'll have to keep you posted on that. (And that strong wind I heard earlier is gone now.)

Last note: It's coming a little more to the east now, but rather than Raleigh getting the eye, I think it's going to pass through Wilson. Not too far off. Greenville isn't going to fare much worse than I initially thought, and we still look clear. But I'm only seeing the front band, or arm making a huge arc to the west, from Fayetteville through Chapel Hill and up into Richmond, VA. There should be a trailing band or arm that will probably slap us later in the day, but that should be weaker.

Wired wirelessly with Bluetooth

I've always had a little bit of spite for those Bluetooth headsets I see everyone and their brother using, but I finally got one.

I remember our last vacation, in the Atlanta airport, this guy was looking right at me and talking. I answered back, but then realized he was on the phone. He wasn't holding a phone - in fact, I couldn't even see his phone. But he had a little contraption on his ear which blinked every few seconds, which was connected wirelessly via the Bluetooth technology, to his cell phone.

It wasn't the first time I'd seen one, of course, but it annoyed the hell out of me. I thought I would never own one. Part of the reason, though, was the cost. I'd looked at them at the US Cellular store (my wireless carrier), even Walmart, and you can't get one for less than $50. They used to be around $75, so they have come down... but a guy I work with said he got one for about $30, shipped.

So I did some research online. I started with Amazon.com, because if you spend $25 or more on certain items, the shipping is free. However, I couldn't find one under $30 I liked. They all had some problem or other. So I went to Newegg.com, where I've spent close to $3,000 over the years in computer hardware. That's no exxageration, either, and I'm almost ashamed of the total. (I spent just under $1,000 at one time buying the parts for this computer when I first built it, and I've probably dumped another $500-$750 into more parts for this computer. The rest must just be miscellaneous purchases.) Anyway, Newegg didn't really impress me with its sub-$30 earpieces. (For the record, Newegg has the least expensive one, at $13.) So I looked a little higher.

Plantronics is a name I know and respect from a few jobs, I know they make corporate-level headsets and speakerphones, but most of their products are too expensive for the casual consumer to own. So I was surprised when I found a Plantronics earpiece for about $25. I wasn't interested though, because it got mostly bad reviews. So when I started looking at slightly more expensive Bluetooth earpieces, their Plantronics Explorer 370 caught my eye. It looked better than their entry-level unit, and only had one review, and it was good. So I Google'd the name, and found more positive reviews on various blogs. I decided to go for it.

$41.98 shipped - it was a little more than I wanted to spend, but still less than the cheapest one at Walmart. And I have the confidence of knowing that I did my homework and found one that is generally well reviewed.

Now that I have it, I have a few complaints, but overall I'm satisfied. It's not a very good fit, for example. It has a molded piece which fits inside the ear, and it's tricky to insert. Once it's set up, it's not entirely comfortable. It's not bad, but I feel it could fit better. By contrast, my coworker's earpiece doesn't have the molded piece, just a speaker, and he says he can't really feel his on his ear. And his is a Motorola, which as he points out, you really can't go wrong with. I've never had a bad experience with Motorola technology, but the Motorola earpieces I researched were of low quality (and I could not find the one he has). Also, the instructions say that if you receive a call and press the "call control" button on the unit, it will accept the call. I tried that when Jen called, and it instead rejected the call. So I have yet to learn all its features.



As you can see, it's kinda discreet, but not as discreet as perhaps some of them. It's also kinda neat-looking, dark blue with a rugged black rubber grip. I had selected the basic 370, which was black and silver, but for some reason Newegg.com upgraded me to the Sport version, which I considered but did not choose because I didn't like the look. Still, I'm not going to complain about the swap - at least it's not yellow and black like some of those "Sport" electronics. (If it were, it would have been sent back unopened.)

Overall I'm happy with the unit, though. I talked to my mother for about 5 minutes, and she hates when I put her on speaker or use a handsfree solution (wired). She claims it sounds bad and complains until I "take her off the speaker". Well, after 5 minutes of talking I finally said "you don't even know I'm using a handsfree do you?". She admitted that I sounded a little different, but she said it wasn't enough to complain about. Also, when Jen called me, I left my phone on the desk and did the Verizon-patented "Can you hear me now?" test. Even in the bedroom, about 30 feet away, she could still hear me fine. But when I laid on the bed, she said I was starting to break up, but it got fine as I got off the bed. So if my phone is in the bathroom or something (where I have the charger) it should be fine. At work I carry my phone in my chest pocket and the Bluetooth in another pocket, and when I take calls I take them on the Bluetooth, so it's within a foot of the phone - shouldn't be a problem then.

Next step - to pair my Bluetooth with my PC and use it as a microphone, e.g. for voice chat.

No longer supporting terrorism

It was perhaps too harsh, an ad which ran shortly after the 9/11 attacks; I don't know who sponsored the ad, but it basically said that buying gasoline was the direct equivalent of supporting terrorism. The backlash was huge, the ad got pulled - but dammit, it had a point. We have to buy gas - unless you live in Chicago or New York City or a few other cities where public transportation can be a viable alternative to driving, you must use a car to get to and from work, to do so many things that have become a part of our daily lives. And the gas, of course, comes from the Middle East. Or... does it?

There's been an email going around, also as a bulletin on MySpace and other social networking sites, and other blogs have posted it as well. It claims to be from a petroleum-industry insider who's "fed up" with high gas prices and sits down to share some tips to save money at the pump. Sounds too good to be true... well, it is. It's chock full of lies. What's true and what's not I don't know, but when it said who buys their gas from the Middle East and who does not, I found an error. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it prompted me to head over to the Department of Energy's website. That site is a bloody mess, but after about 30 minutes of research, I found the list the email promised I'd find: A list of all the major oil companies, and how much (if any) oil they buy from the Middle East. That proved the email a hoax, because many gas companies (like Hess - what we call "Trade Mart" here in the South) were listed in the email as not buying gas from the Middle East, while the Department of Energy clearly states that they do.

There are two gas companies around here which, according to the Department of Energy, do not buy any gas from the Middle East: Shell and BP. So, as of a month or so ago, I decided to buy my gas exclusively from Shell and BP whenever possible. (When you're on the road, sometimes your choices are limited.) I've found that there are Shell stations right on my way to and from work.

Now, whether buying gas from the Middle East constitutes supporting terrorism is highly debatable - and I'm certainly not saying that everyone who does get their gas from a station that buys from the Middle East is supporting terrorism, I'm just saying that I'm now sure that I'm not supporting terrorism. I spend about $200 a month on gas, that's about $2400 a year, and I've decided to take that $2400 away from the Middle East and give it to, well, I don't know who, I just know it's not who we're currently at war with. It might be a country that doesn't like the US much, whatever, but it's not from a region in which American troops are being killed or injured on a daily basis.

Some would argue that most of the Middle East gas comes from Saudi Arabia, and that the Saudis are our friends. They may be on good terms with us, but just last week President Bush went to the Saudi king and told him how gas prices are hurting the American people, and asked if he could please take action to get the prices lowered. The Saudi king politely told Bush "no". Again, I'm not entirely sure and I'm not saying that the Saudis are supporting terrorism - I don't know nearly enough about the region and its politics to make that kind of call. (And for the record, I harbour no ill will towards Arabs, living here or over there - unless, of course, they're fighting American troops.) I'm just making a safety call and buying gas elsewhere.

And some would argue that the high gas prices are not a result of the Gulf War II aka the War on Terror, but look - gas was under $1 a gallon before 9/11. I can understand inflation - $2 a gallon is fair, I suppose. But nearly $4 is ridiculous, and anyone saying the prices more than doubling in the last 12-24 months is not a result of our country's actions overseas is overlooking something. I know there's a lot about the fuel industry I don't know, but I know gas prices have doubled as the War on Terror has (more or less) turned in our favour. Call it coincidence - I sure don't.

I don't urge my readers to buy from Shell. That would put me in the same boat as the con artist who wrote the email forward. Rather, I urge you to hit up the Department of Energy's website and find that list yourself, and make a list of gas stations who don't buy from the Middle East, and then strike out gas stations which aren't in your area, and then only buy from those gas stations. In World War II, women back home (this was, of course, before women were allowed to serve in the Armed Forces) supported the war effort by, among other things, taking up their husbands', brothers', and fathers' jobs back home, kept the economy going. Nowadays, those of us (of either gender) who aren't serving in the Armed Forces can support the war effort, by buying gas that doesn't come from the Middle East.

First video blog

You know, I've been on broadband for almost 3 weeks now, I think, and I have only just made my YouTube account today. Click the link, if you'd like to go to my YouTube profile, which should contain links to all my videos, not sure what all it'll have at this point as it's still pretty new to me.

So without further adue, here's my first video blog:



And the follow-up to it, which is incomplete, but provided anyway:



My sincerest apologies to those on Dial-Up. Trust me, I feel your pain. I used dialup for about 2 years before getting on DSL. If you can get on broadband, trust me it's worth it. Even if you don't use filesharing (BitTorrent, e.g.) just the fact that your pages load quicker and you can take full advantage of sites like YouTube and other video-powered sites, it's worth it. And these days you pay about the same; if you don't mind, a little shout-out to my ISP, Embarq; for about $65 a month (first bill hasn't come yet) we're getting 3MB DSL and home phone, which is awesome compared to $55 a month for basic home service PLUS $22 a month for Dialup - as you can see we're actually saving money by getting broadband. If it's not available in your area, you need to hound the cable and DSL providers in your area. They want to make money, so they need to know about potential customers.

May 2008 Check-In (misc. stuff)

Wow, it's been a while since I've wrote up here. Well, a lot's changed, got a lot to cover. Kept meaning to post, but never got around to it. My normal practice would be to write 4-5 separate blog entries, but what ends up happening then is, one gets written and the rest get forgotten, so here goes.

So far I've lost about 25 pounds, in a little over a month. I gained about that much after the holidays, and I've worked hard to get rid of it. I had a bit of a panic at the end of January; after eating a whole pizza to myself, I weighed 330 pounds. I now weigh 305 and I'm losing about 1-3 pounds a week between a lowfat diet and regular exercise. Oh, and those Alli pills Jen takes, but I'm not so sure they work so good into my plan as diet and exercise alone. Maybe they are, maybe not. I pretty much replaced regular soda with Coke's "Zero" line, drinking more water, etc. When I do eat candy, it's the lower fat ones. There's a big difference between a 3 Musketeers (7g/fat) and a Hershey's chocolate bar (13g/fat) and a York peppermint pattie is better still (4.5g/fat). And I've sworn off seasonal candy starting with Halloween last year. No candy corn, no Christmas candy, no Necco hearts for Valentines Day, and no creme eggs for Easter. I put back an embarassing amount of that stuff the last couple years. I'm not really on a diet, I'm just making better choices. It's a gradual process but I am making progress.

We got DSL the week before last, and it's awesome. We're paying Embarq for DSL and home phone about what we were paying the local phone company for just the home phone service, PLUS we were paying EarthLink $23 a month for dial-up internet. So we're saving money and our Internet is about 100X faster. Maybe more maybe less, but about that. I've downloaded a ton of cool stuff, and we can watch video on YouTube without waiting.

We've been playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band over at Jen's brother's place, and getting into it. I downloaded Guitar Hero III on the PC, and it's crap. Just a really bad game, and people with computers twice as good as mine have the same problems. It skips, it lags. We were borrowing my brother-in-law's guitar (he has an extra one), but we bought Guitar Hero III for the Xbox 360, so now we have our own guitar, and when we get out 360, we'll already have one game for it. And we can delete the download. I feel sorry for anyone who paid for the PC version. It was shipped broken, and shame on Aspyr and Activision for selling faulty software. It's fine on the 360 and the PS2 and PS3, all inferior technologically to my computer, so it should play on the computer just as well. The only thing we can do on the PC is play on Easy - Medium difficulty is unplayable because the extra notes lag the game to the point of making it unplayable. This is a common problem over on the GameFAQs board for GH3 on the PC. People with godly computers have this problem. Everyone's saying at least get a cheap PS2 and play it on that. Well, we're getting a 360 anyway (Jen says by the end of March we can afford it) and we have the 360 version of Guitar Hero III, so we're set.

I was a complete idiot and cut my finger, bad. I was crushing soda cans at the same brother-in-law's place, ripping the pop tabs off and saving them (apparently they're worth more recycled as they're purer aluminum or something) and then crushing the cans. Well, I got some Mountain Dew on my fingers (it's practically all he drinks, heh), and went to pop a tab off, and my finger slipped in, and hit the lid of the can at a bad angle. Blood everywhere and it wouldn't stop bleeding. Almost a week later and it's not quite healed. I'm not even sure it's closed up! I've had band-aids on it, I've even been doing chores, even though every impact hurts like hell. I just did the dishes, luckily we have finger cots to keep the soapy water out. I can put rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide on a cut, but I can't put a cut hand in dish water.

Back on the topic of Guitar Hero, I helped our four-year-old niece play bass guitar in Rock Band. If you've been living under a rock for the past four years, Guitar Hero is a beat-synchronization game where you press colored buttons in sync with colored lights that appear on screen, travelling down a "road". When the colored light goes under your "fret bar" you hit (or be holding) the colored button that matches it, and strum the guitar. It doesn't have strings, but it does have a switch you can flip up or down to simulate strings. It's not an easy thing to do, and it's harder to master. Rock Band is the same thing but with two guitars, a drum set (4 drums and a foot pedal), and a microphone to sing into - you have to match pitch and tone with your voice. Anyway, I traditionally play bass. I put bass on easy; lead guitar, drums, and vocals were all on Expert, I think. I sat her on my right leg and let her strum (when I told her to) and I handled the colors. That worked OK for one song, but for the next two she sat on my left leg and held the colors I told her to, and I took over the strumming. On the third song, we got 90%. Not bad for a 4 year old being helped out by an adult.

The tradition of me doing the laundry continues for the third week in a row. Jen and I used to do the laundry together, on Sunday, but now on Monday nights, I go to Greenville and do it myself. I have a routine down and everything. I thought that we would do it yesterday, as Jen took the day off, but she stayed at her brother's place to play Rock Band (and drink) while I went off on my own and did laundry alone. On one hand I wish she would have been there to keep me company, but on the other hand it's my time alone and I have fun.

More neighborly weirdness

Late last year I wrote about how our neighbor called animal control on our dog as we were trying to find a better home for her, saying that our dog bit her dog in front of her place while her dog was on a leash, where the exact opposite was true - our dog had never left her chain (or had slipped back into the chokechain) and was probably defending her puppies, and the neighbor's dog had probably gotten away from her and got between our dog and the puppies. We can only speculate as we weren't there.

The weirdness continues.

Oh, there have been little incidents. Once my wife was riding down the driveway (we share a driveway, she's in front, we're in the back) and this lady had her dog out... she quickly picked up the dog as if my wife would swerve to hit it. Or, shortly after calling AC on us, we'd ride by and she'd avoid looking at us. Yawn.

Late last year, between Christmas and New Years I think, Jen was out shopping with her sister or something. It was early afternoon and I was just getting up. I looked out front, and halfway between our kooky neighbor's place and ours, on the driveway, was this black pickup truck. The passenger was sitting in the passenger seat, and the driver was leaning up against the passenger door, talking to our neighbor, who kept pointing back here. Playing devil's advocate, she might have been indicating a vacant place next to ours, or she might have been indicating the fields behind us, where people hunt - maybe they were hunters. They were just awfully close to our place. Here's the kicker though. I got on the phone with Jen about it, and finally decided to go out and see what was the matter. I cut lights on, I'm getting dressed... as soon as the door opens, they all take off like scolded dogs. The car backs out and heads on down the road - fast - and the lady makes no hesitation getting back to her place. I just made like I was checking out the skies, admiring the day, I didn't do anything hasty or aggressive or anything. Odd, that...

Then a week or so ago, my wife's heading down the driveway. When she rounds our neighbor's place, she sees our neighbor (no, we don't even know her name) pinning her dog as if they'd just had a wrestling match and she's got him (or her) down for the three-count. Jen checks the mail, collects the mail, reverses back into the driveway, and heads out the other way to leave for work, the whole time the lady has this dog pinned. Not doing anything with it. Not giving it a shot, not putting a leash on it. I didn't see, so naturally I can't speculate further, but I know how my wife checks the mail. She takes her time, it's a daily ritual for her. It adds at least a minute, 90 seconds to her departure. Taking her time, she might have watched the lady pin her dog for 90 seconds to 2 minutes. We've been advised we should have called animal control for that (plus turnabout is fair play) but we didn't. We're the quiet type, I guess.

I was also not here for the latest incident, which took place last night. Jen called to inform me of strange activities outside. Strange activities, I ask? Sure, she says. Two or three cars out there, and she's sure one is the law. None are really coming back here though, she says - but their lights are pointed back here. (Sure, they would be, if they pulled up to her place and didn't turn around or cut their lights.) Jen also noted a car at the place next to our neighbor's, which is also vacant, and has been broken into on one recent occasion. I play devil's advocate again and speculate the weird lady might have called the law on suspicious activity in the vacant residence, thus the cop. Jen watched from a window, everyone was there maybe 15-20 minutes, I gather, and nobody came back this way.

Would y'all call that weird? OK, for most of them there are probably reasonable explanations. But ever since this lady tried to scam us (for the vet bill her dog supposedly got) we've been keeping an eye out front. Nothing aggressive, we've just been vigilant. (Oh, she has too - she posted a "No Trespassing" sign in her window - not facing the road, but facing us.) I don't know if this lady thinks we have a rivalry or whatever, but for our part we're just looking out for our own interests. I mean, we worry that she might take and kill our kittens; we have no idea what she's capable of. Maybe we should move - we have a few good reasons to - but we also have a few reasons to stay put. Not indefinitely, to be sure, but for the present we like where we're at, but that's a topic for another day.

New Years Resolution: No Alcohol All Year

I made the radical decision a few days ago to not drink a single drop of alcohol in 2008, first as a joke ("wonder if I can do it") and evolved into something I really want to try. I am not a heavy drinker, by no means an alcoholic, but I do enjoy drinking Captain Morgan's spiced rum on occasion. When I was in California I enjoyed sampling various microbrews, and though the selection in North Carolina is much more limited, I'd drink Newcastle, Killian's Irish Red, or even Bud Ice. I'd only drink socially, and I wouldn't drink very much. So it isn't a big sacrifice, by any means, but I am going to stick to it.

A few people have told me I can't, and they're not entirely wrong. This will mean not drinking on Jen's birthday, or my own, or our anniversary, or the birth of our first child if we are so blessed, or the loss of a loved one if our luck should (god forbid) go the other way. But I think, like any challenge in life, the rewards associated with it are beneficial as well. My mother says it'll help me lose weight (I'm close to 300lbs) but I see it as a way to take more responsibility for health (same idea, different perspective) and of course save money.

The plan was to get sloppy drunk tonight and stop at midnight, but truthfully I only had about four shots of the rum all day. Jen drank the rest. I was going to drink during wrestling, but we had a coin toss to see who'd drink and who'd be the designated driver. She won, so she chose to drink. And that was fine, I didn't want to get *that* drunk anyway, when it came down to it.

2008 is a leap year, if you didn't know. 29 days in February. (My redneck brother-in-law and his redneck best buddy say leap years are a Yankee lie and that no year ever has more days than 365, but he also claims Metallica started out as a country band in Greenville, NC and their biggest album was their album entitled "Enter Sandman", and that the Internet is full of lies, so we tend to take everything he says with a grain of salt.) So 366 days of no alcohol. Think I can do it?

PS: I know this sorta breaks my "Vacation" blog, but the intention was to post that, like, the week after I got back. I know I been slackin. I'll get to it, but I need to no longer limit my blogging to just that, so I can come up here and post other stuff, too. If you'd like to see all the Vacation stuff in one place, click on the Vacation label below a Vacation post (not sure how that all works specifically, should be easy) and you should be able to pull them all up. No real timetable on when that'll get done, sorry.

The latest and last update on the puppies

Well, the last of the puppies - the last of the dogs, as a matter of fact - has just left with her new owner. A brief history:

Jen had a dog before, Mojo, who had contracted mange, possibly from a snake bite, and had to be put to sleep shortly after I moved out here. Then Mojo's mother had another litter, and Jen and I picked out Sammy. A few days later, her mom brought Sammy out, and the stuff to build a pen. We put the pen up, and Sammy had a home outside.

A year or so later, we felt Sammy had outgrown the pen. We bought a chain so she could run around, but still reach her doghouse, though she never used it, even in the rain. (Please don't misunderstand, for some reason she loved the rain.)

In mid-August 2007, our friends, online and off, convinced us that it was wrong to keep Sammy on the chain. We decided that it would be in her best interest to find her a better home, but nobody would take her. We put an ad on Craigslist, a free personals/classifieds site, but nobody there was interested, either.

On September 14, I was crippled by a plantar wart and in bed under doctor's orders, when Jen reported that Sammy was pregnant. That night, we heard howling, and Sammy had given birth to eight puppies. Four of each gender.

We lost one puppy in the first week. All we know is that one got stuck in the fence and might have been hurt. We broke our shovel trying to bury him, so we put him far out in the field.

A friend from work got the first puppy, but had to bring him back the next day, unable to keep him.

We put ads on the Craigslist and Freecycle sites for the puppies, and for one week in the Carolina Bargain Trader. We got a few calls, but once they learned the puppies weren't pure Rottweiler, they lost interest (even though we said in the ads that they were mixed). One guy even came out, drove an hour, saw them, and decided he didn't want any. We updated the Craigslist posting with the urgency that the dogs had to go by mid-November, or we would have to take the remaining dogs to a shelter (we had looked up no-kill shelters on the ASPCA website and said as much).

Within an hour of updating the Craigslist ad, I was contacted by a woman in Raleigh, 2 hours away. She wanted two males - one for her and one for a co-worker. We agreed to meet her halfway, in the town of Wilson. She told us if we had problems getting rid of any of the puppies, to let her know.

We were contacted via email by a lady from the Outer Banks (a few hours away, right on the coast) who wanted one, said she was going to a wedding on Saturday and would be passing through on Sunday, and would like the last male. We said we couldn't promise anything, so she said she has a brother-in-law in Blackjack (about 10 minutes away) who could take one and hold it for her. I told her I'd meet him at the Blackjack Store (where I occasionally shoot pool) any time and give him the puppy.

A few days later, we were contacted by a couple in Kinston, 45 minutes away, who wanted the last remaining male. I gave them directions and they said they'd be on their way and would call us when they got close. A few minutes later I got another call, this time from a couple on the road, who happened to be real close by, wanting the last male. I told them he was being picked up, so they said they'd look at the females.

While waiting for these two couples to come, I heard someone at the front door. I was still getting dressed, so I didn't make it there right away, but got there perhaps a minute or two later. Someone from Animal Control had stuck a note on the door, saying Sammy had bitten a neighbor's dog. I tried to call, but of course they were already closed.

The "closer" couple got here first. I put the male in the pen and let them choose from the four females. They fell in love with one almost immediately and took her. As they were leaving, the Kinston couple called, and couldn't find our driveway! I directed them to where a minivan (the other couple) was leaving. They took the male, and seemed happy with him. That brought us to three females.

On Monday, I called Animal Control right when I got up (early afternoon - hey, I work nights). They said that our neighbor was coming home, had her dog on a leash, and Sammy ran up and bit her dog, and then ran off. I knew the story was fishy and told the guy so. He said regardless we'd have to get a rabies shot for Sammy, and the neighbor wanted $45 for her vet bill, but AC wasn't going to enforce it, simply suggesting if it happened the way she said, we ought to pay it. When I talked to Jen, the truth came out. Sure enough, Sammy had been on her chain the whole time. If there was a bite, it actually happened on our property. What probably happened is her dog got away from her, came back to see the puppies, and got bit. Being a "responsible pet owner", she didn't let the vet know the whole story, who probably suggested we contact Animal Control and try to stick us with the bill. The lady's been avoiding us, even avoiding looking at us, ever since - either she had a conscience attack or realized we weren't fooled.

We contacted the Outer Banks lady to inform her the last male had been adopted, but we had the females. She consulted a vet, and her family, and said that would be acceptable - but still no concrete time to meet her or her brother-in-law.

Monday night, a lady from Jacksonville (about an hour and a half away) called and said she wanted one of the girls. Normally I would go watch Monday Night RAW, but this was more important. She actually didn't get here until about 11:30pm (so I didn't have to miss it, really), fell in love with one, but needed a can of dog food, not being able to go shopping until the morning. We gladly gave her one (being as that we wouldn't need it before long).

The next day, Jen transferred one of her contacts to me, being as he sounded serious. (A few people had contacted her, via Freecycle, but weren't really serious.) I had him meet me Wednesday. He wanted both of the last puppies, but I told him about the Outer Banks lady. She sounded flaky, but something told me she was more serious. I offered him Sammy, since we'd need to find a home for her, too. He warmed right up to Sammy, and left with Sammy and one of the girls.

Yesterday (Thursday) we got an email from the lady in Jacksonville. Her puppy had gotten worms. It was pretty sad, since we had heard great things from most of the other adopters. She wasn't real clear, whether the puppy would live or die. I wish we would have known, but there wouldn't be anything we could do here. We certainly wouldn't be able to afford to take it to the vet for that - she said treating it was/would be costly. But, y'know, a free puppy... You can't expect someone to have fixed it, given it all its shots - else it wouldn't be free. We didn't charge for the extra dog food we were out. You get a free puppy, it gets sick and needs special care, well, you have a choice. You spend the money and get it well, or you don't, and get another free puppy the next week, they're always available. Sad, but that's the world. If more dogs were fixed, there'd be fewer unwanted puppies, and the ones there were would be valued higher... But then the same could be said about humans, though nobody would like to.

Today, the Outer Banks lady hadn't written back (I gave her until today, since the last puppy was real lonely) and she hasn't written back. I can only assume she found a puppy closer, or has lost interest (or might be having computer problems, I guess that's possible). Either way, we couldn't keep the last puppy any longer, so we called the guy who'd taken Sammy and the other puppy, and he just left with her an hour or so ago.

So now all we have left is the pen. Which I plan to take down in the next couple days. And I guess that's that.

We've learned a fair bit from all this. First of all, we learned that we really aren't the best people to have a dog, certainly not one Sammy's size. She wasn't big, but on the bigger side of medium. We didn't have the room for her. We're not allowed to have dogs inside, and we don't have a fenced-in yard. The animal rights people got on us for having her on a chain, but unless you got some good money, you gotta face reality. A dog's got to be on a chain or in a pen, or you can't really have one. So we made the hard choice to not have one.

We also learned it's important to get an animal fixed. Our cat came fixed, that's great. If we'd have gotten Sammy fixed, sure six puppies wouldn't have made people happy - but they could have found other puppies, easily. One wouldn't have made my wife cry (the first one) and one wouldn't cause such heartache for a couple we don't even otherwise know.

We'll get another dog, down the road. We'll buy a home, either a double-wide trailer or a modular home, with some land. We'll have a fence, and then we'll get a dog. We won't take the first one that comes our way, either. We'll think about it, we'll talk it over, we'll shop around. We won't limit ourselves to the freebies, either. We'll probably pay for a dog. We'll probably take it to the vet within a couple days, make sure it has its shots, make sure it's fixed, make sure it's healthy. We'll definitely keep it inside and housebreak it, so it goes out (or gets us to let it out) when it's got to "go". We'll learn from this, and next time we'll do things right.