New Movie for My Collection

I only purchase movies if I'm going to watch them again, and again, and again. I saw "Live Free or Die Hard" this weekend and liked it so much that I watched it again the next day... then liked it so much again that I wanted to restart it right after I finished... I've gotta get this movie. :)



link: http://www.youtube.com/v/QZ9Q1EGge7Y&rel=1

GTK 2+ and Soccer

I've been getting back into sports! Over the last month, I've played a game of football, rugby, and nearly 10 soccer games! I'm a little sore, but my balance is back to ridiculous. Oh, what fun can be had with feet that move faster than expected... :)

My car is fixed and beautiful! Turns out, the work was covered by a recall, so I'm only out $180 for brakes! I'm still going to sell my precious *ahem* my ZX3, but I'm now selling it in top condition.

I shaved my beard off on Friday. It was an arbitrary decision, just like the previous decision to grow it was. Cheryl likes me better with the beard and I strongly agree that it gives me a certain bonus regarding the perception of respect. I'm going to grow it back. I walked in to the sports garden Sunday to play with my team, but no one recognized me without my beard. :D Imagine that!

For those fine few using WorkRave, Pidgin, Gaim, Gimp or any other GTK based tools, I strongly recommend updating to the latest GTK. It's prettier than ever.

Farewell My Sporty ZX3

I haven't used my lil red sportscar for 8 months. It's a sad sad thing. In 2 years of service, the only maintenance it has required (despite my race car-like driving) has been oil changes and a set of tires.

The KBB for this car is here: http://alnk.org/radham

Because I let it sit, it needs new brakes and calipers all 'round and a right coil spring. I got it on the cheap 2 years ago and it's performed solidly since. It's slick and zippy, has a phat 200watt MP3 CD player, carries up to 16 pairs of skiis/snowboards all the while handling like a porsche. 'nough said.

If anyone's interested, I'm offering a friend rate of $3.5k before I post it to craigslist, the kbb classifieds for $5k. If you're a skilled mechanic, the parts for the jobs above come to $500. If you're not, I can have the guys at East Ave auto do parts and labor for $1k (would add a 1 year warranty).

This car is a golden egg and I'm having a really, really hard time letting it go. It's cheaper than a beater and more reliable than most new cars. I've never been in a car that's more fun to drive (including a porsche boxtser, bmw 5 series, audi and a nice little mini). It gets 27 city, 33 highway.

Hahaha Money and Effort

Hmmm, what's on my mind? It's a little frustrating that annual raises are so unrelated to personal effort. Manager's get a pool of money allocated to raises for your entire department, so if you've got a great team, it may be difficult to get a decent raise...

Thomson's great about that and it really doesn't seem to be "I get more if they get less", but it's still a lot easier to pull a few extra bucks via sites like rentacoder.com. I'm looking into doing a little side contracting. Does anyone use a site like rentacoder.com?

Another Blog Question

Just a quick question: Is anyone enjoying the new mixed content in my blog? Would you like to continue seeing embedded video, or should I keep it text-only?

Baby Annabelle Can Sit Up!!

Ooooh! Look at what Annabelle learned to do the other day! (http://youtube.com/watch?v=h-zdXahkZ9I)

Annabelle in the Snow

Yesterday, Cheryl and I took 'lil bug out in the snow in her pink ewok suit. It took a fair amount of time to truss her up, but she was patient. As she lay watching us prepare for the cold. Movement was a distant memory due to the massive number of layers she was wrapped in, but that was ok; Mom and Daddy were obviously up to something interesting...

The first wall of cold took her breathe away and brought out a very cute poutty lip. She blinked the snowflakes out of her wide-open eyes and started to look around, gathing info regarding her new and highly modified surroundings.

We set her down so she could stand in the snow, but she really didn't like that idea. Annabelle: buuuuuWAAAAAH!!!!!
Me: Yipe!! Ok, ok, let's go fly around some more... cute lil kiddo.