New Spring Graphic Novel

So this past Monday was probably the most exciting day of my life. Not really, but I was pretty excited. Because my Wheel of Time graphic novel (comic book to the untrained eye) finally arrived. And that in itself is a miracle. I spent the previous couple of weeks searching comic book stores and regular book stores for the series and cannot find it anywhere. Even searching online they are all sold out except for one website. Whenever I come close to finding another website that would sell them the website is either shut down or they are only selling one....used. Now needless to say that the site I did buy it from is way overcharging. To save my mothers sanity I will not say here how much I did shell out for only 1 volume out of 5. Suffice it to say I would rather not do so again, if it can be helped. So I call upon you, my faithful blog followers to keep your eyes peeled, though good luck having a better time of it than I did.



Anyway, the book itself is really cool. It's nice to see the things that I have been reading of. Especially for a fantasy book where a good deal of the things are made up, it's nice to know what the author is thinking. Now about this time I am going to start losing my audience because no one really cares but me, and maybe Ian, though he probably gave up on reading this blog a while ago.



Though on a final note they are producing books now on the rest of the series and the first is due out in December, so I'm excited about that too. Hopefully they will be a little bit more accessible.

Holy Land Experience

We finally did it! Nick and I finally made it up to Holy Land U.S.A. We had been planning on doing this for ages just never got around to it. I guess that's what happens when two not very self motivated people plan something. So anyway, it finally came to fruition and let me say that it was the weirdest place I have ever been. It was a cross between Jerusalem and Middle Earth.



Apparently back in the day it used to be some kind of bizarre theme park that Catholics could make a pilgrimage to, or whatever. They had like a mini-Jerusalem set on a hillside with little concrete buildings all over the place. They recreated the Temple Mount and Calvary and different scenes like that.



And I must admit that it was pretty cool, don't know if I would have paid money to go and see it, maybe just trespass and park illegally to boot.

Now the real reason why anyone knows that this place exists is because of the famous Holy Land Cross that can be seen whilst driving down I-84. It's up high on the mountain in Waterbury, and I always used to wonder what it was when I was a kid and driving by.



As you may or may not know they just newly renovated the cross. The old one, I'm told, used to light up and looked a lot junkier, but it was the original, so a lot more highly coveted. I guess that's what procrastination gets us. Anyway, we finally got to see the new one up close and personal, and it was really cool. The view from the top of the mountain was spectacular too. Waterbury actually looked like a decent place from up there.



It was just a really neat place. There were all sorts of statues in seemingly random places with writing on huge, cracked stone tablets. It really did feel as if I was in Middle Earth. I was expecting Frodo (or Steven Chadbourne in costume) to pop out at any moment.



If you want to see all my pictures that I took, the full album is on my Flickr page.

Day on the Town

Yesterday morning when I woke up I called my mom to see if she wanted to come hang out with me for the day. Being the bum she is, she was still sleeping at 10:30am. Just kidding of course, she was probably up all hours of the night tending to a cranky grandson. So anyway, I called back later and asked, and I must say I didn't really have high hopes as my mother is not one to deviate from a schedule and/or make spur-of-the-moment plans. Surprisingly she said she would and showed up at my house around 12:30 or so.

This being her first time over in well over a month, I had to give her a tour of the updates on the house, which weren't all that numerous, but the niceties need to be followed. We sat with the dogs for a bit and Cody beat up mom pretty bad while Milo took advantage of the monopoly on the toys. She had suggested we go out to eat, and with activities being rather limited we hopped in her new Ford Explorer of which she is so very proud. We then proceeded to drive around aimlessly down Route 6 to find a good place to eat and finally settled on Carmine's, an Italian restaurant that ended up being very good.

Anyway, we ate, talked, she paid and left. I then tried to convince her to run across (literally) Route 6 with me to GameStop to see if they had a baseball game I could buy (they didn't). She refused and took her car across instead to T.J. Maxx. I joined her there after my fruitless search and spent about 5 minutes trying to find her. Finally succeeding, in the baby section, I steered her over the the men's section and a really cool hat I wanted her to buy. To make a long story short, didn't get the hat, but I did get a really sweet jacket for the winter. Then she dropped me back off at home and left, supposedly not wanting to be mauled by dogs again.



Lunch and a jacket, we should do this more often mom, thanks!

The 10 List: Most Beautiful Women (After My Wife)

1. Kate Beckinsale - Beautiful in every movie she is in, from Pearl Harbor, to that awful Adam Sandler movie. Especially in Serendipity.









2. Gabrielle Anwar - For you unfortunate lot who don't know her, she is from the TV show "Burn Notice". And she is beautiful, especially with that Irish accent.













3. Alexis Bledel - Oh Rory, I love you.













4. Kelly Ripa - Now I might catch some flak for this, but so what, she's beautiful even in her late 30's. And she's smart and funny, what more do you want?












5. Winona Ryder - She may be a little strange, but she's a decent actress and I think she is beautiful.












6. Zooey Deschenel - I love her.












7. Naomi Watts - Picture says it all. Wow.














8. Jessica Alba - Oh come on, you knew she was going to be here. Who cares if she can't act, does she really need to be good? Who listens to what she says anyway?












9. Ellen Page - So apparently I'm in the minority on this one, but hey, if she looks beautiful even when she is pregnant in Juno then she's good.













10. Rachel Bilson - *sigh*

A slimy piece of worm ridden filth...

Milo has worms and it's disgusting. He pooped some out, I have pictures, but I won't put them up. Anyway, we brought him to the vet and are giving him meds now. Ew.

Big (Trash) Day

Today was big trash day for me and Kristina, which is very exciting for us. We were finally able to get rid of all the crap in the garage and the remnants of the shed on the side yard. Though sadly this also had to include getting rid of the Davis' couches that were stored in the garage. These were the most comfortable couches in the world, not to mention they brought back some good memories of hang outs at the Davis house. I'm still kicking myself for not bringing those upstairs when we first got them. Due to the nastiness of the garage they grew mold and were very dusty and rendered unusable.




It is a big relief to get rid of all those things on the side yard and the rest of the stuff in the garage though. We had been wanting to do it for a really long time, but didn't have anyway of disposing of it. We are also hoping that it will help a little with the air quality in the house as well, because Kristina has been complaining about it. The job was a bummer to do because I had to bundle up all the loose wood with string, and cut it to size with a sub-par circular saw. Though to be perfectly honest, two cinder blocks with the wood between them and me jumping on it did a better job of it. I was amazed at how much junk there was to throw out. I mean the house has only been lived in for 10 months, how could we have accumulated so much stuff to throw away? Crazy.

Unrelated picture of Kristina running away
from the U.S. Capitol.

But that was not the only reason today was a big day. Today was the day that my DirecTV was repaired. As you may or may not know I tried to fix it myself with less than desirable results. But....but, it was not all my fault because the repair man said that when the branch fell it warped the dish so even when he aligned it it still didn't work properly. So he had to replace the entire dish, which he didn't charge us for. I thought that was very decent of him. Also, the cable is now buried, which he also took care of, to prevent any recurrences.

All in all, a very satisfying day.

Milo and Cody Update

I have been meaning to write this post for a while now. Just wanted to update everyone on the whole Milo and Cody situation. Because as you all my know, due to a prior post, when we first got Milo Cody was all up in his grill like 24/7. Which I suppose is understandable because it's a new thing, and Cody is used to being by himself and the center of attention.




However, I am glad to report that things have settled down considerably. They act more like buddies now than Milo just being Cody's plaything. Every once in a while Cody will steal whatever Milo happens to be playing with. But for the most part they just leave each other alone. They will still play with each other, it's just not a constant thing.

When they do play Cody will lay down and flip over on his back to get down to Milo's level. I think it must hurt Cody, though Kristina disagrees, because Milo will bite down on his "mane" on his neck and jerk it around like dogs do. But Cody doesn't do anything, he'll just playfully bite Milo's ear. I must say that Milo does start a lot of the "fights" though. He will run up behind Cody and bite his back legs and try to jump on him and run away. Cody has turned out to be a lot better than we ever expected.




They have even got to the point now where they will sleep with each other. Granted it only last about a minute before they start scrabbling, mostly because Milo will bite Cody, but it's still cute. Last night Milo was laying with Kristina on the couch and Cody jumped up with them and started licking Milo like he was cleaning him. Milo just laid there and took it and it was very cute. And I know I am using the word "cute" a lot in this post, but don't think any worse of me for it.

The 10 List: Minor Irritations

So today I launch a new segment on this here blog called, "The 10 List." First off let me say that this is not a VH1 style countdown, it is just a list. The members of this list are in no particular order, ranking things just frustrates me and causes ire in others. So I hope you enjoy these, they came out of what me and Nick call "brainstorms", where we just pick a topic and see how many things we can come up with, it's fun, and most of the time pretty funny....to us. Anyway, here is the first list of things that I find really irritating in everyday life.

1. Thirst v. Urination - The conundrum in which one is very thirsty but also has to urinate very badly and is forced to choose between the two.
2. Light Switch Direction - This happens when there are multiple light switches to one light. The light will be off but the switch for it will be up when all the other switches on the panel are rightfully facing down.
3. Anonymous Pizza Boxes - No logos on the pizza box. Oh man, this pizza is really good, where is it from?...No body knows, bummer.
4. Signal but no turn - An especially annoying bit where the driver of the car in front of you is oblivious to the fact that their blinker has been on for the pas mile and a half. Somehow they manage to ignore the odd clicking noise and blinking light on the dash.
5. Change Jingler - You know what I'm talking about if you have ever been in an awkward conversation with someone. The other person seems to think that the situation would become less so if he stands with hands in pockets and jingles all the change in them during the silence. Is he trying to show off his money, or what?
6. Know What I'm Saying? - Basically anybody who ends every sentence with"Know what I'm saying?" Only they were mumbling so badly the only part of the sentence in which you did know what they were saying was the last bit. Ironic. People guilty of this are usually from the "urban culture".
   
7. Condescending Computer Nerd - Everybody knows what I'm talking about, whether it was the Tech Support guy on the phone, or the lonely looking kid in the back of the room I was trying to befriend. Sorry for asking what a binary code was.
8. Socks and Shoes - This is when the sock sticks to the shoe instead of your foot when you first put your shoe on. It results in the sock rubbing up against your foot in a very irritating fashion.
9. Back Splash - I know we have all experienced this so don't knock me for it. When you are taking a poop and one falls in and the splash gets on your butt. Really annoying, and uncomfortable.
10. Shaving - Pretty self-explanatory, and both guys and girls suffer from it. Some people get a hard time for not shaving for a while, while girls can more easily conceal the fact, fair? No, it's not like I'm going to wear a mask around just so people don't know.

Well I hope you enjoyed, and stay tuned for more lists. If you have any ideas for a brainstorm, let me know, and I'll see what I can come up with.