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Sold the TV from the guest-bedroom-to-be today (craigslist rocks).  After we sell the coffee table and maybe the treadmill we will be helping Finger (a reader and friend) hold a yard sale.  We’ve got some wild, wild life…

Actually, we are looking forward to getting rid of a lot of books we will never re-read, games we will never re-play, and a whole lot of other stuff we will never, ever use.  That does not include my 3 Commodore 64s, though.  You can just go to hell if you think I am getting rid of those.

We will probably use the money to buy stocks based on my brother’s recommendations.  It’s amazing, you know.  He has a 68% return rate for his own stuff in under a year, but I am forced to have his legs broken like once a quarter for his picks for me.  It saddens me, really. 

I added an O.F.N.O.G. counter in the sidebar on the right.  What is an OFNOG?  Do a search using the Search Box on the right and you will see.

I am really liking this upgrade.  Thanks, WordPress!  Especially for the spellchecker!

Hey, all… Bear with me!  Working on a new look for the blog, since I had to upgrade the Wordpress engine anyway.

This will be a constant work in progress.

Why don’t you go check out the most recent puzzle… a hint has been posted, you know.  It’s at the Puzzle for Charity link on the right.  Good Luck!

I know the blog is hosed right now.  I am working on it. 

A thunderstorm cut short my work, but everything should be fine. 

Soon…. ish.

Holy Cow!  A hint has been posted!  Good Luck!

What am I talking about?  Click on the Puzzle for Charity link on the right!

Well, folks, the Viking Table has been sold!

That’s right, the family to whom it now belongs has it right now.  I got the greatest e-mail from the new owners about the adventures of getting the thing into their house, which I am keeping (the e-mail, not their house). 

In the e-mail, I also got a new nickname.  It is basically “[Insert First Name Here] the Viking”.  For those of you that know me by name you (and the e-mail author) will agree that it is about as fearsome as “Conan the Accounts Payable Rep.” or “Skippy the Lionheart”.  But I’ll take it. 

I am looking forward to asking my boss for new business cards and a new sign on my cubicle wall tomorrow to reflect my new title.

Agmorion, Siun-Kelan, and Finger came over this weekend and a good time was had by all.

I finally got an offer on the Viking Table.  The selling price is a heck of a lot lower than I wanted but at this point I just want it out of my garage.  I am glad that some of my friends finally got to see it in real life.  Hopefully, the person interested is pleased with it - they are getting a really good deal.

Next project will be turning an upstairs room into a den.  Or maybe putting in a firepit out back.  Or landscaping around the food garden.  Or completing an electronics project that has been ‘almost finished’ for about 2 months.

If you have not tried it, go to Maggie Moos.  It kicks the living crap out of Coldstone.  If you have not heard of either one, I can’t really help you…

That reminds me, I think there should be such a thing as a “Wine Truck” which would be the adult equivalent of an ice cream truck.  It would drunkenly weave around various neighborhoods after dinner, tunelessly ringing the little bell (when the driver remembered to) whilst distributing Merlots and whatnot until someone was seriously injured.

No luck getting the Hunter’s Stock Pick page automated without having to “learn” a little bit of yet another language (PHP this time). 

As it is now I really don’t have time to be updating this site, going to the gym, and doing all of the other things I want to do (welcome to life, Mr. Grown-Up).  Due to the nature of my job I can’t update from work.

I could, however, if I had a Blackberry, (or similar) post while I am at lunch or stuck on the James River Bridge.  That would definitely help out.  I am due for a new phone so I will see what the wife says.

The answer will probably be “maybe”…

As I reported in a previous post, I bought my wife a HDTV (we are not exactly what you would call ‘early adopters’… we like toys, but we don’t beg companies to sell them to us).  Charter Cable, in addition to thier magnificent and gracious 10 Meg of e-mail storage (?!), does not have HD set top boxes… at least in this area.

So we cancelled them and are going with DIRECTV and we will be getting a HD DVR to boot.  We are staying with Charter for the cable modem.  They tried to charge us $68 per month after the TV service was cancelled.  After my wife said “Umm, no… we will use DSL instead, I guess”, they recanted and are now charging us $38 per month. 

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Not much to say today… too sleepy. Here’s some stuff:

1. My Tassimo makes great Chai tea.
2. Agmorion is going to help me automate the Hunter’s Stock Picks link on the front page this weekend, so hopefully it will be taken care of by the middle of next week.
3. A Stone Garden post (in the Projects section) will be coming shortly.  The post will be like the Viking Table, which I still haven’t sold, btw.
4. Replace water in a store-bought brownie recipe with reduced blackberry Merlot for an absolutely awesome flavor.  Use more reduced Marlot as a glaze.
5. Let’s see… manly things, manly things… Woo hoo!  Go, Local Sports Team!  Woo Hoo!  Hooray for carburators! 

New Poll… it’s on the right.

Oh, yeah… I almost forgot… the current Puzzle has been up for one month now… Looks like I am going to have to think of a hint soon.

Puzzle for Charity link is on the right.  Good Luck!

Every year about this time our neighborhood is overrun with Japanese beetles.  We ususally go nuts with the poison sprayer for a couple of months, but Agmorion (a reader and sometimes writer) turned us on to something called a “Bag of Bugs”.

I guess they come in different brand names but they are basically a bag that you hang from a stick.  A pheromone sticker is stuck to the bag holder. Peel back the sticker and the bugs are attracted to the bag, climb inside, and are trapped and die (eventually).

Works pretty good.  I would say we have about 1/4 pound of beetle carcasses in the bag in the front yard and half that in the back.  The Crepe Myrtles and the blackberry bushes nearby appear to be beetle-free.  Good.

So what?  Good is boring (and sometimes dumb).  What about the evil?  Won’t someone please think of the evil?

Well, I was thinking you could buy refill pheromone packs and rub them all over someones doorknobs to their house.  Or maybe smear an invisible rude word onto the side of their car…

Weatherwax has submitted a new 80’s Movie Haiku (Teen Wolf)… (the link is on the right).

Enjoy!

Bought a 42″ HDTV for the wife for her birthday. 

Since it would not fit in the existing entertainment center, we needed a new one of those.

Since the old coffee table and old entertainment center were a set, we got a new coffee table.

Since the new coffee table had a matching end table and the existing end table matched nothing at all, we got a new end table.

On an absolutely, thouroghly, and completely unrelated note I cradled in my arms the only XBox 360 Elite in the store for about 3 minutes in BestBuy Friday night and tearfully decided against it of my own free will. 

For now.  Until some real non-blog-rumor type info comes out about a 100% effective heat disipation solution with the Elites specifically and the XBox 360s in general I am going to hold off for a bit. 

Besides, I don’t know what to get.  I would prefer to have a dedicated game machine and ramp down on buying more and more powerful PCs.  But, then again, Spore is coming out “soon”.

Happy Birthday, Baby!

The Prize for Puzzle 03 has reached $40.00 (plus the quilt, of course).

What am I talking about?  Click on the Puzzle for Charity link on the right.

Good Luck!

I just bought an iPod Shuffle.  Since this thing is about the size of a large Chicklet, I wonder how many dogs have eaten their owner’s MP3 player? 

Did you know that 500,000 acres in the U.S. are currently on fire?

Fun Fact: You are more likely to become canonized than to become an astronaut.  It’s true, kids!  There are 3,000 saints or saint-like thingies.  Divide by the number of applicants (people who have lived over the past 2000 years - say 30 billion), and you get 1 in 10,000,000.  Dividing the number of people that have ever been in space by the number of people on the planet gives 1 in 13,200,000.   Neat!