SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!!!!!!!

Lord of the Rings fest, this Sunday at our house. If you don’t know where that is, ask someone. According to the Four Eyes blog, Davey got the Hobbit dvd, and is planning to start that before Fellowship. I guess the plan is to start the Hobbit at 9:45 am (yes, in the morning). That should mean Fellowship will start about 11 am.

Davey says he will make Lembas bread french toast. He also keeps saying there will be Mickey’s. Bill may or may not get coneys. I’m sure we will conjure up some other foodstuffs for second breakfasts and all.

The parking enforcement is turned off for the day, so ignore the “No Parking Anytime” signs if you drive over. I don’t really know who is coming. Rest assured, the movies will be playing whether the audience is 1 or 20. Anyone going to make it through all three movies? That’s the challenge. Here’s a link to the blog about last years.

Here’s a funny WoW link. It’s a take off on an Apple commercial and it’s sort of about Paladins (which is what my main toon is). I realise that no one who reads this, except Davey, plays WoW, so maybe some of you should think about starting. If you do, make sure you get on Draenor and play Alliance, then you can join our guild. The damn game is like a drug and now I feel like a pusher. It is a lot of fun and you don’t have to be very good at video/computer games to play. I’’m a perfect example.

Hurray for Santy Claus

Christmas almost did me in this year. I feel like a Christmas cookie (the ones that look really pretty (‘cept I don’t look so pretty) but taste like cardboard with sugar on top-and for you wise acres, yes I do taste cardboardy sweet) chewed up and spit out. I ended up getting sick Thursday night and didn’t get any sleep. Friday morning, we opened presents with the kids here and then had to begin our pilgrimage to various relatives houses, none of which live in our hometown. They kids were sick too, as they have been for most of December. That’s the added bonus of preschool. Free viruses.

The gift that Roan made us at preschool was a Christmas/winter theme pot holder with her hand print on the back in white paint. One of the teachers wrote “Roan 2005” in gold ink. It’s sweet. I have the momitis thing, where any weird looking object or scribble that your kid makes you is the best thing ever. It really is. Just comes with the territory, I guess.

I also got a really nice digital camera. It’s tiny, with a really big screen. The funniest gift was one that both Davey and I got from his sister. (Hi Erin!) She has a friend who works for Neighborhoodies, who also plays World of Warcraft. He had her get our character’s and guild name. We thought this was just so if we were on the same realm, we could add them to our friends list, or whatever. It was really for our Christmas presents which were black hoodies with our character’s name on the front and guild name on the back. It’s the best. Pretty geeky, but almost anybody who saw it, wouldn’t know what the hell it means anyway.

We told our WoW friend Shurgrim about the the hoodies last night. He said we had crossed the line to “uber geekdom” or something like that. Then, about 10 minutes later, he was explaining to me the lore of the Winter Veil celebration (what you have in WoW instead of Christmas) and why the Horde celebrate it as well as the Alliance. Ahem.

Last night we did part of Gnomeregan with my lvl 26 (dinged 27 last night) priest, Davey’s lvl 33 (I think, low 30’s anyway) priest and Shurgrim’s low 20’s paladin. We made it all the way to the clean zone with out wiping and I got two quests completed. We did pretty good. And it was fun. We’ve been doing some high lvl instances with our mains (lvl 60) and they just haven’t been much fun. Even though I hate Gnomeregan, it was fun to do last night. I guess it’s just like real life. It’s not so much the job sometimes, but the people you “work” with.

Here's a picture of the Christmas explosion that happened at our house when we got home Monday.

Link Is My Dog

Some Four Eyes pic’s are up on Olsen’s site. There is some problem with them though, because there’s only a few and then it says “oops my image for this link is no longer here, photobucket.com.” I tried to leave a comment, but I had problems doing that too. Maybe I just suck.

Here’s a treat for you don’t know about it already. I love it. I’m listening right now.

Santa is making a special trip to our house tonight, since we are going out of town. I’m trying to get Roan as excited about it as I am, but all I get is “sounds good.”

Ride the Lightning

I guess we’re all anxiously awaiting the posting of the blog paparazzi’s photos from the Fours Eyes show. Haven’t seen any yet, but I know there are some good ones. Have I mentioned how much fun that show was?

Anyone wake up to the sound of War of the Worlds this morning around 2:45 am? There was a thunderstorm pretty much directly over our house. There would be a flash of light and then this horrible sound that I can’t even begin to describe. It didn’t sound like thunder, though. It didn’t even sound like thunder. It didn’t have the rumbling echo like sounds. I guess because the sound waves didn’t have very far to travel. This lead to Davey and I discussing the Doppler effect at 3 am, and then just settling on, “yeah, it’s some physics thing.”

Then I started thinking about Physics as I was falling asleep. I really liked Newtonian Physics in college. The class I took was basically a glorified high school Physics class, since it stuck with the algebraic stuff and stayed away from the Calculus. Sometimes in the lab, the instructor would play those PBS shorts called “Eureka!” My sixth grade teacher used to play them too. I never got them in sixth grade. After taking some college Physics, I could finally follow them.

I forgot to mention how scared Davey was by the lightning storm last night. We were such dorks we got up to check the weather report. Actually, the sound of the thunder when it was right over our house was so freaky, I wouldn’t get out of bed until the storm passed a little and the thunder sounded “normal” again. The kids seemed to sleep through the whole thing. This morning Roan said she heard it and put her fingers in her ears. I’m not sure if she meant the thunder woke her up, or just her noisy sister.

We went to Trader Joe's last night. I got some blueberry gut bomb muffins. I think they are called “fiber cakes” or something like that. Last night, Roan said she was hungry and I asked if she wanted a muffin and she excitedly said, “Yes.” She wasn’t too excited after she had a bite of the muffin. I got her to eat most of it.

This morning I asked what she wanted for breakfast. She didn’t know, so I asked if she wanted a muffin. She did. I warned her about five times that it was the same kind of muffin she had last night. She still wanted it. Then after I gave it too her, she said something like, “I don’t like the junky muffins that Daddy gave me” (haha she blames Davey). She keeps calling them junky muffins. I only gave her half of one and she’s been trying to finish it for about half an hour.

Four Eyes Full Circle

This has been a really busy weekend. The Four Eyes show last night rocked. Thank my mom for the $20 “beer money” she gave me before the show. That’s what it was spent on. Speaking of the beer, I have to say I was impressed that throughout the night, people put twelvers up on stage to share. What a great audience. There was even some beer left over at the end. I also forgot how bad Keystone Ice is.

There were a bunch of crazy drunks (I mean that in the most affectionate way possible) in the audience snapping pictures on their digital cameras like mad. I’m guessing they will be circulating the internerd at some point. Which reminds me, my favorite chant of the night was “Nerds! Nerds! Nerds!” You can’t go wrong with a classic. Of course “Charles brought a beer to you/Charles brings a beer to everyone” was right up there. Don’t know if that really counts as a chant, but it’s close enough for jazz.

Perhaps the highlight of the night was the giant group hug during, “We are the Champions.” That was also around the point I got half a beer poured down my back. Hey, I’m not complaining. I was getting kind of hot anyway.

I had about 1000 more things I wanted to write about the show (especially last night when I was still buzzed, so everything sounded extra witty and brilliant) but I think I’m suffering from beer fog. (The fog of beer?)

Kid Stuff:

The little boop is crawling now. It’s pretty cute. But, like most things kids do, it’s kind of cute and kind of annoying. Now she can get into trouble at will.

The big kid had her preschool Christmas party last Friday. It was really cute. The kids were wearing reindeer antlers they made. They had a strip from a paper bag for the head band, and then, for the antlers, they had their hand prints cut out of dark brown paper. The teacher also stuck colored dots on their noses. Roan got to be a “Rudolph” because her dot was red. Did I mention I’m and extremely bad parent, because I didn’t get a picture of this? It’s her dad’s fault too, he was there.

The kids had jingle bells and the teacher made us all sit around and sing with the kids. The kids got to shout out requests for songs they wanted to sing. So we sang a few Christmas carols and the “itsy bitsy spider” and the “abc song” and a couple I didn’t know. The kids all had goody bags. The teacher gave them all a couple of books, I think. Roan’s are still wrapped and under the tree. There was also a present that said “to mom and dad, love Roan.” I’m dying to see what it is, but Roan won’t let us open it until Christmas. I keep asking her what it is, but she won’t tell me. I have a more than sneaking suspicion that she forgot.

We had dance class Saturday morning. Last time we went Roan was a total grump. She turned it around this time though, no whining and she seemed to have a lot of fun. So we’ll go back when the open up again in January.

Saturday night was a kid friendly Christmas party. It was fun. There was a white elephant gift exchange. It was pretty funny. The gift I got was a perfect fit. I was probably the only person there (besides Davey) who would’ve wanted it. I was also, probably, the only person there (besides Davey) who already had it. What? You might be wondering. Why, the dvd of UHF, starring “weird” Al Yankovic. There was stuff like a box of wine, a twelve pack of Pabst, a poop calendar, and I can’t remember what else. Davey got a little electronic “20 questions” game. You think of something and the little computer asks you yes/no questions to guess what it is. It’s cute, but sort of weird. I was thinking of “horse” and it guessed “Clydesdale” then it guessed “pony.” I thought of “cat” and it guessed “black cat,” then “tabby.” I guess you have to be very specific.

Sunday morning we braved the storm to meet up with some friends at “Hometown Buffet” for breakfast. Well, enough said about that.

Monday, my parents came up. I borrowed my dad’s Ford Aerostar (used to be mine) to go Christmas shopping while Davey was at band practice. I can’t believe I used to drive that thing around everywhere. I swear it rocks like a boat. I do miss all the room it has, though. I got a major backbreaking, bicep-tearing workout, as I had to carry this completely heavy thing I bought through the store and the parking lot. It was when I was almost to the car, I realized I could have put it in a shopping cart. Oh well, I kind of like the feeling of sore muscles. It makes me feel tough.

And that brings me back to the Four Eyes show.

4-Eyes Show Tonight

Go to the Four Eyes Annual Christmas Show tonight at the Loft, 7pm sharp. It should be a good one this year. I've got a good idea of the songs they're covering, thanks to the mix cds that have been in my car the last couple of weeks. I think I even get to go to the show this year, too. Awesome.

Nothing to Post but some Pictures

"ballet suit"


Roan pointing at the little tree she wanted us to cut down and take home

More Potty Talk

Roan peed on the floor of Sears Saturday night. Before we stopped at Sears, we stopped at some store so I could get my bro a shirt for Christmas. Roan had fallen asleep in the car, so Davey waited with the kids. After that, we drove over to Sears, so we could buy vacuum cleaner bags. What else is there to do on Saturday night but shop for vacuum cleaner bags? We had to wake Roan up to go in. We got about halfway to the elevator (bags are upstairs) and Roan says she has to go potty. So we tell her, “Okay, wait a sec.” Meanwhile we had noticed some kind of neat Nintendo t-shirts that Sears was carrying. It’s not like we made her wait very long, anyway I look down and there was a big puddle on the floor. I had to take her upstairs to the bathroom and have her strip down and change into the “emergency clothes” I carry around in a diaper bag. Unfortunately, her emergency underwear was also wet, most likely from a baby bottle leaking on it. So Roan got to go commando. She also had pee in her shoes which I tried to blot out, but wasn’t too successful. I gotta teach her to at least pull her pants down and squat next time or something. It was such a mess.

Baby Sage decided that she had enough of being sick and didn’t want to go to bed last night. Around 1:30 or so we decided she’d have to come to our bed and one of us would go to the couch. Davey took the couch. She settled in, stopped crying and pretty quickly went to sleep. And started SNORING. I can’t even sleep listening to the dog breath, so I went and switched with Dave. I woke up at 7:30 and went to see why he wasn’t leaving for work (he decided to go in late) and Sage was sleeping like a rock, completely quiet. Actually, I was half asleep and she was so still and quiet it freaked me out.

The couch wasn’t so bad at first. I had the nice white noise of the fish tank to listen to. It’s not noise that keeps me up. Actually I really like white noise, like a vacuum cleaner. I can’t fall asleep to breathing/snoring/heartbeat type noises or music unless I’m really super tired. It’s something about the rhythm (a great word to use if you’re ever playing ‘hangman’ btw).
Davey made a nice blanket cocoon on the couch and it wasn’t bad until I woke up with a stabbing pain in my side. Oh well, at least the baby stopped crying. Roan slept through everything.

LotR Fest Part Deux

LotR Fest is scheduled for Jan. 1st. So don't over-do it New Year's Eve. I guess we need to search Hobbit hangover cures, so we will be prepared. Hopefully everyone has the 2nd off, you're gonna need it to recover from 12 hours of Middle Earth fun. I will post a reminder for y'all, but I'm sure your so excited about it, you won't need one.

RIP Cujo, or annoying other dog, if that was you

I just came back from dropping Roan off from preschool. My next door neighbor and his step-dad were out front standing by the back of the step-dads pickup. I waved “hi” and brought Sage inside. (Saying “Hi” is about the extent I know this neighbor, but I like him, because I know he’s not bitchy).

Once I’m inside, I hear sobbing and I look out the window and it’s his teenage son. I was suspecting it something about a dog, the way they were looking in the back of the truck. I wanted to go out there, but like I said, I don’t know them that well and the teenage son’s girlfriend showed up as well. So I was a nosey neighbor and peeked out the window. It was a dog. They’ve had 2 dogs over there but I think it was the rottie, the one they’ve had longer. The girlfriend got some towels and moved the dog to her car.

I also suspect it was the rottie, because the step-dad always comes by and takes him for a ride. I’ve seen him driving in land park, he would stop, open the car door and let the dog run out and crap in the park and then the dog would run back to the car and they’d be off. The step-dad never got out from behind the steering wheel.

How sad for them. What a shitty month this is turning out to be.

Sew Many Christmases

I broke the needle on my sewing machine the other day. I put on the overcast foot, which has a little bar in the middle for the thread to go around. Unfortunately, I forgot to change the stitch selector to the overcast setting, which tells the machine to move the needle around the bar. I started the machine up and there was some horrible banging, crunching snapping noises. Part of the needle flew up at me, too. The noise was so bad, I thought I’d killed the machine. Not only did I break a needle, but I managed to snap the little bar off the overcast foot as well. There is a gouge in the bar where the needle hit it. Luckily, Davey is very skilled with the JB Weld, so he glued it back together for me. I tried it out yesterday and it is now working fine.

I normally love this time of year, but this year I feel too hurried and stressed out. It sucks. Not to mention we will be having about four “Christmases” again this year. We’ll have one at our house the day before Christmas eve, before we leave town. We’ll have two in Santa Cruz on Christmas Eve and then Christmas morning at my parents. It just starts to be too much. Especially when you’re traveling with two little kids and a carsick dog. It also means that Christmas actually starts two days earlier.

Yeah, I’m in a complaining sort of mood. Maybe it’s because I started the day off with a Banquet chicken fingers frozen entree. There’s not much to eat in the house and that was sitting in the freezer. Davey would eat those for lunch all the time. I don’t see how, they’re pretty gross. Roan helped me eat it. She wanted to dip the chicken in the brownie.

At least there ain't no hole in the washtub...

Who borrowed my “Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas” dvd? I think I know who, but I can’t remember for sure. The only person I can think of wanting to borrow it is finishing up a nice vacation in Hawaii (are they back yet?) Apparently, there’s a version of the dvd released recently that has the Kermit parts omitted because Kermit is owned by Disney and they wouldn’t allow it. Jerks. I’m pretty sure the version I have (when I figure out where it is) still has the Kermit parts. It’s that time of year, I gotta watch Emmet Otter. And speaking of the happy couple with an appreciation for muppets, over the weekend this site was getting hits from Europe, the search words were “Joel and Hillary.”

Roan had a poop accident today. So sad. She almost made it to the potty, then she yelled “Mommy, I poop-ed in my pants.” She was pretty upset, but not as upset as she’ll be when she’s older if she ever finds out I’ve been writing about all this stuff.

On the baby front, little Sage is going to start crawling any minute now. She can move backwards, by half crawling/half sliding, pretty quickly. She hasn’t really figured out how to go forwards yet. She also rolls around the floor to try to get to things. She’s backed under the Christmas trees a few times and gotten stuck. I don’t think she likes the needles poking her head.

I’ve also been reading bits and pieces of “Bored of the Rings,” the National Lampoons version of LotR. Sheesh, it’s horrible.

For some reason, Roan is in the other room singing “Happy birthday to you.” Kids are so weird. She had preschool yesterday. They made cute little wreaths out of paper plates. The teacher is trying to teach them “Jingle Bells” so they can sing it for the parents on the last day of school before the Christmas break. That should be really funny. When I picked her up yesterday, she had orange stuff all over her mouth. She said they had orange ice cream for snack. Here we go with the crazy snacks again. She also told me that two kids got a time out for hitting each other. I asked her if she got a time out, she said, “no.” Sometimes it’s hard to know what goes on because she knows how to tell lies already. Dave told her not to touch the Christmas tree last night. Later, he came into the living room, Roan was standing next to the tree and quickly moved her hand back and one of the branches was swaying. She insisted for about 20 minutes that she didn’t touch the tree. I had no idea that kids turned into teenagers around the age of 3.

Brrrr...

Is anyone else freezing her ass off these days? Well, actually my ass is quite warm, it’s my feet that are about to turn gangrenous. Yes, I’m well aware I’m a sissy Californian and it’s not that cold. No amount of wool socks, however, have been able to keep my feet warm. One year I even tried electric socks. They didn’t work.

Christmas shopping season is upon us and I’m dreading it. My parents ask me what I want and I can’t even come up with anything. I’d like a horse, but I’d also need a lot of money to keep said horse or I wouldn’t have it for very long. How about 3 more hours in the day? Warm feet would be nice.

Roan would like a bicycle, which we’re going to get her. I have to take her to the toy store to see what size bike to get and maybe she can help pick out a couple presents for her friends. That should be fun. [sarcasm] I already got her some “princess” dress up clothes. She also wants a horse (good girl!) I don’t think she wants a real one though. I think the one she wants is pink or purple and sparkly and has wings or a horn or something.

Had to neglect the Warcraft playing this weekend. I was just too tired. Well I did play on Friday night and it sucked. I filled in a Dire Maul group near the end to help out some guildies when a member of their group left. They were working on the Dire Maul tribute quest. You go around the instance and kill everything but the ogre bosses. Then you make an ogre suit and a guy in your group puts it on. Then you have a limited time to kill the main boss guy. After you do that, you become king of the ogres and all the guys that were trying to kill you are friendly and respectful and crap. You can even get booze off of the drunk ogre. Anyway Davey (Lucite) and I did that quest last week. Our group that time had a couple of weirdos in it, but we finished and it wasn’t too bad. On Friday, the group really stank. They had a priest who sucked and didn’t heal anybody and then quit the group saying it was too hard without a tank. Lack of tank really wasn’t the prob. Dumbass. So, my guildies didn’t get to finish the quest. I wasted my time and didn’t get any loot (in fact I think I ended up losing money). After that I went out to the front of Ironforge (dwarven main city) and dueled Davey. I won 2 out of 3. So much for him respecing to frost. Couldn’t even beat me.

Yucky Hucky

Roan started preschool on Wednesday. She really likes it. I only know what goes on there based on her accounts of events from her three year old perspective. On her first day she played on the castle slide, played with toys, her “butt fell in the potty” because one of the boys left the seat up (yes, these bad habits start early, shame on his parents) and she cried, they sang “Jingle Bells” and the teacher read a story, but she couldn’t remember what it was about and they had teddy crackers and juice for a snack. At this preschool, the parents take turns bringing in the snack. When I talked to the teacher on Monday, she said some parents complain about the snacks being too sweet, etc. I thought teddy crackers (teddy grahams, I assume) and juice didn’t sound too horrible.

I picked her up today, and it sounds like they did a lot of the same stuff. I asked her what they had for snack and she said, “marshmallows and mushrooms.” Wtf??!! I asked her about five times. I even asked what color they were. The marshmallows where “whipe” and the mushrooms were “kind of brown.” Did someone really bring that in for a snack? I think Roan might be telling me stories. She said they had milk too. Now she’s telling me the marshmallows were “yucky hucky.” She’s her daddy’s daughter, so I don’t think she’d ever think marshmallows were yucky, but who knows. Man, I can’t wait ‘til she’s a teenager and I really don’t know what’s going on in her life.

Remembering Jim

If you knew Jim or were a fan, you should go here and post a comment if you haven't already or at least read them. Jim has some really eloquent friends and it's nice to read the stories of the good times people had with him.

Sad News

I thought about not writing about this at all, but it’s a like a giant elephant standing in the room and it’s hard to go on about kid potty stories and such when something horrible has happened. For some reason I’m hesitant to write about the details on a blog.

The world has lost someone I’ve always admired. I was a fan of this person and his music before I even knew anyone in Sacramento. I have to say I was pretty star-struck when I met him. You would have heard his influence in my “bass style” over the years, if I’d have ever practiced. I thought he was genius.

I hadn’t seen him much over the last few years and I feel bad about that. My heart really goes out to his family and our mutual friends. There are a lot of people I wish I could give a hug right now. I will have to wait for the memorial on Sunday.

Dave “S” has posted details of what happened on his site. My headache that started last night is finally gone. It took two advil, laying in bed for an hour, a “vitamin V” and a bunch of chapters of “In Cold Blood” (I couldn’t find my LotR trilogy and just got the Capote book from the library) before I could fall asleep last night.

I hope he’s found peace and is in a better place and I hope he knows how much he is missed.