It Happened Again

My poor father, although he gets no sympathy from me, must be having a streak of bad, bad luck. You see he was robbed for the second time this year, last Saturday night. Since he fears walking home from the local bar, he has taken up drunk driving again. Alas, not even driving home from the bar can keep him safe from the criminals in our neighborhood. As he left the bar Saturday, on his way to his car in the dimly lit back parking lot, he was accosted once again, but this time by a band of 3 Hispanics. They demanded he give them his wallet, or they were going to hurt him. Like the coward he is, he obliged them and gave up his wallet forthwith. Just like a little kid when they hurt themselves doing something they know they shouldn't be doing so they don't want to tell the truth about it. My Dad is one in the same, because he didn't want to report the theft to the police because he knew he wasn't supposed to be driving drunk, and didn't want to admit to being victimized twice in 5 weeks. Simply put he didn't want to admit his alcoholism was responsible for getting him robbed twice. My fathers excuse for not reporting it was there was nothing in his wallet, and he didn't get hurt. Ah but the law isn't so blind and as yet another strange twist in his series of unfortunate events that plague my father, he wouldn't have to report the crime perpetrated on him this time.

Sunday mourning he received a call from the Carol Stream (a local suburb) Police. It turns out they had arrested a a couple of guys who had been committing a series of robberies all throughout the northwestern suburbs of Chicago, and they had my fathers wallet on them at the time of their arrest. Stranger still, my dad lied and told the police he had lost his wallet. My mother quickly stepped in and told him he couldn't lie about a crime. So my dad who usually listens to my mother, actually did something that requires courage, he called the police back and told them the whole story, why he initial lied, and what happened. I give him respect for calling the police back, because from my own perspective, I would have had trouble doing that, but he should have just told the truth in the first place. He then spent the next 6 hours at the police station answering questions and what not. He even got to pick one of the perps of the crime out of a line up. Who knows what's in store for my dad next? What I do know is he'll be testifying in several court cases.

That reminds me, I need to update on the whole robbery car theft, that's an even stranger story!

Where Have You Been

Well hello again my loyal readers, all three of you, I have been on a bit busy as of late. With what you may be wondering (Jon you already know)? Well seeing how I have a lack of a social life right now, I have been working on a major project and playing Half Life 2 for the PC. That's right, my puter aint broke no more! YAY! The new Mobo came last Monday, Jon put it in and it works like a charm, so far, I'm keeping my fingers crossed! Now back to my project. Ok, its not so major, its just remodeling my little bro's old room. Speaking of him, he's thinking of coming back home. Tough noodles though, the Monmothma AKA my Mom says; he gets the room in the basement next to the chain smoking chimney that is my dad. That's right Andrew the cone of evil is calling you. You're restless and you don't understand why? Return, it calls out to you....Your presence is needed! Eh sanity is over rated.

Work on the room has gone rather smoothly, My other bro Jon came out last week and stayed for a couple of days. We ripped up the carpet, painted the walls, and all that's left is to put down the floor. Work would have gone faster ,but Jon has to stop for smoke breaks every five minutes! The original paint for the room was a mint/pond scumy green. My mother decided it was to plain and transformed it into, what can best be described as a tie-died Easter egg! I'll get pics up soon, I promise this time, no more excuses. All I have to do is get some decent batteries. Maybe I'll buy the correct batteries for the damn camera, use them, then rap them up as a Christmas gift for my old man, then take the camera for my own. Gwaaahaaa ha haa haaa! That's my evil laugh. Speaking of evil and Christmas, the two go hand-in-hand, I'm too broke to give decent gifts this year. Besides the parents don't want to get a tree, so whats the point. Ba Humbug I say.

Now on to Thanksgiving. It was rather uneventful, and I didn't have to work. First time in five years. We had a small too moderate turkey breast, I think we all hate dark meat, except for dingus AKA my little Bro Andrew. Who, I might add, doesn't like tomatoes or medium rare steak? Why is that so strange, because everyone else in my family does. I think Roosevelt said it best "never trust a man that doesn't like tomatoes!" Andrew just has to be different. After we ate, we did the Family tradition and went and saw a movie, we usually do this before we eat, but Jon and I didn't wake up until 4ish, when dinner was ready. Anyways we saw National treasure, A history lesson infused with adventure. I give the movie two stars out of four. Take the Goonies, my favorite movie, make the Character old, change the fratellies, never mind leave them the same, add Ben Franklin and the forefathers, stir and you have National Treasure. I found the movie a tad boring and unfunny, but my parent's like it a lot. I found the acting to be poor and the script to fast paced with one liners of history to explain and move the plot along. The climax of the movie is rather anticlimactic, enough said.

Moving along, Half Life 2. Now I never played the first one through all the way, so I was a little in the dark on the story. Still, this game leaves nothing out, not even the kitchen sink, literally. It also looks amazing on my PC, effects all the way up and running 128 frames per second. How do I know that, the stupid program/server, Steam, you have to load up to play the game, ran a diagnostic and told me. Stuff I always wanted to know. Heres another odd thing about the game, you have to Steam logged on in the background to play, even if your not playing Counter Strike online. That's Half Life 2's Online team mode. Now to game play, the game never got boring to me. Its levels are amazingly designed. You can interact with almost anything too. My biggest complaint were the load times. Even on my high end PC it took forever to load up the next segment of every level. Also, switching between weapons, is down right annoying, especially when you get them all. On many occasions I found myself bumbling for the right one in the midst of a fire fight. PC gamer said it was the best game ever, But I beg to differ. The crafting of the game is painstakingly obvious, unlike Halo 2, but it still falls a little short for my taste. Overall I give it a 94%, just because of its innovation in game play, the story needs work, and seeing how it leaves a giant hole, Literally, in the plot at the end, I look forward to Half Life 3, when it comes out in another five years.

Chiken Pot, Chicken Pot, Chick-en Pot Pieeeeeeee

Ok this post has nothing to do with Chicken pot, but it does have to do with pie. I was still thinking about david Cross (read below first) and thats his famous line from his cameo on Just Shoot Me. That episode reminds me of my brother Jon, I think its all a big scam. Anyways today I baked a sweet potato pie. I got the recipe from the show Good Eats on the food network. For a guy that hates eating, I sure do like to watch the food network! Why sweet potato pie? well since I work at Lone Star, I have acess to an over abundant supplie of sweet potatos, pluss, it looked good on TV.

Let me just say, baking is over rated and it cost more for the supplies, than it would have to buy a premade pie from the local store. The sweet potatos were free, but pie crust, walnuts, eggs, plain yogurt, spices, and canned whip cream cost me over 15 bucks! Should have just bough the pumpkin pies they were selling at the front of the store, practicly taste the same.

Some how my pie making went horibly arie! We didn't have a steamer basket for the sweet potatos, so I messed thoes up, and I made too much so it threw the recipe off. Just a note about sweet potatos, 1 & 1/2 lbs of sweet potatos, is like 1 sweet potato, not three. Live and learn. Oh ya, and the steamer I used was a colinder inside a pot that was too small for the colinder, so some of my cubed sweet potato chunks weren't cooked all the way, and the SP's I got weren't very sweet, but thats Lone Star for ya. Oh and the recipe called for browned/roasted walnuts, and I burned those in the pan tryng to roast them.

Since I had so much extra batter from the over use of sweet potatos I made two pies, both equally bad. I think I fead the first one to my mom, and bring the other one to work, and be like here everyone, this is sweet potato pie, its just as bad as eating regular sweet potatos.

Now I dont think, if cooked properly, that the pie would be bad at all. It got five stars (that reminds me, I want to due a a blog on how I hate star rating systems)! so don't be discouraged from making your own . I think Ill trie it again, might as well considering I have all the ingredients now. I'll leave the link below, for thoes of you who want to give it a go

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_24965,00.html

Halo Spasm

Alright, I'm back! I've finally finished playing the crap out of Halo 2, Yet I still feel empty inside, lusting for more. I guess I'll give a brief review and some after thoughts of the game. Not that its not anything new, or you haven't already read some where. If you haven't herd of Halo 2 by now, then your probably from.......... Planet X (the planet that has the opposite orbit of earth and is hidden bye our sun, so it can only be viewed for a minute every thousand or so years)! Go to coast to coast AM with George Noray for more info on that, It really does exist, its just a conspiracy by the aliens from that planet, hich control our government and our worlds Astronomers from letting the secret out. I almost forgot, the Catholic church is in on it too! True story, But I digress.

Halo 2 is.......a game that could have used a bit more polish, but its still fun. I know a lot of people who are saying that it was totally over hyped, And I say poo on them. Perhaps it was a little over hyped, I mean, I can see that, but its still over all fun. My favorite part of playing Halo 2 is with my brother Jon, We kick covenant ass, correction I kick ass and he holds me back. Its almost like Playing Halo with Alex (see my archived second entry/post, Videogames and Broads for more details on that experience)! Jon does the same damn things, I find him wondering into walls, going backwards, and not helping out much. Its still fun though. Jon likes to blame his poor playing skills on his controller set up. Legacy south paw, what is he left handed? Its funny to watch him try to jump. For those of you with Halo/2 I suggest you try it! Still co-op is where its at, and I cant think of any other Xbox games that offer this feature, which is awesome. I think I posted somewhere that Contra could take a lesson from this set up. The plus side to co-op is it lets (wait a second, should there be a dash between co-op? because if there wasn't it would be coop, or is it CoOp?) Damn it I lost my train of thought!Heres a short list of things I don't like about Halo 2:

1. Grafix glitch drives me batty
2. Story is week and hard to follow. You think they could have put little subtitles under the intro scenes to each level,so you know where you are! Instead I find myself peaceing together the story, just like I did in the first one.
3. My TV is too small for split screen, my eyes hurt, I bent my Wookie

Those are my complaints. I would have put the duel wielding, because its awkward when you first start, but once you get the hang of it, your good to go, kick ass that is. I know their have been a lot of complaints over the ending to, but I didn't think it was that bad, Beside by the time I got to the end I was ready to stop playing any who. Damn gaming chair I had caused a giant cramp in my left leg, that caused it to fall asleep, and latter led to a massive spasm and leg ache! Funny story too, I started playing the game last Thursday at about 8PM, and when I finished the game ( I hate it when people say "I conquered it") It was 6:30 AM! Needless to say My plans for that night were shot. Ok I didn't have any plans, but the point was I got pulled into playing it, and I completely lost track of time, mainly because theres no clock in my gaming room. I cant remember the last time when I played a game that did that to me.

Now on to the Xbox Live part of Halo2. Sorry, Erik, I don't have XBL so I cant comment or challenge anyone to a live match, just yet at least. With my computer down, I've been thinking about investing the 50 bucks for a years worth of live play. At least I think its only $50, either way I got a free two months, worth $12, with my purchase of Halo2. Besides I noticed the new Call of Duty for Xbox has an Online play available for it.

On my final note, I think its cool how movie stars are sneaking their voices into videogames. Samuel L Jackson, Grand Theft: SanAndreas, and David Cross (Mr. Show, bald guy from MIB 1&2, Run Ronnie Run.......a cameo on Just Shoot Me) as the voice of one of the Marines in Halo 2. OK maybe hes not a movie star. I think I read somewhere that he loved playing Halo, so the only conclusion I can make is he had his agent talk to Bungie and the rest is history. I cant imagine Bungie was like, we need to get David Cross to be a Marine voice, he'd be perfect.

The only thing left to due is try to beet this game on legendary, only to see if theres an Easter egg at the end like in Halo (1).

I Have Halo 2

Halo 2 A BA BOO BOO

I am curently trying to stay awake so I can go buy Halo 2 today. This isn't a hard task, bcause I can't sleep anyhow. Halo 2 is a big deal, earning several spots on the news this mourning, on several differant stations. who would have thought waiting in line to purchase Halo at midnight would be newsworthy? I, unfortunately, wasn't able to attend a midnight selling, I was stuck at work untill 12:30AM. Stupid Mondays, we can't close untill after the football game, and it happened to be the last game of the softball team we sponsor, so they wanted to hang out all night and drink. Nope, sorry Francis, you can't leave untill their done. I also suggest all of you interested in Halo 2, or playing it go over to ilovebees.com, for some back story, and what is supposed to be some easter egg tie ins. I liked the story they created and thought that the acting was topnotch. Jon on the other hand said the story sucked and the acting was terrible. Hes not easily impressed. If I am able to secure a copy of Halo, don't ecpect any post for a while, I will be busy kicking Covenant (I think thats how you spell it) ass! It would be reall y Ironic and funny if my X-box decided to take a crap on me when I get the game home. At this point nothings turning up Millhouse, I mean Francis.

Now for some filler, I still got 40 minutes to kill before I head to the store. Whats up with the cable this morning? All the news chanles, CBS NBC and FoxWFLD are haveing problems, cutting in and out. the rest of the chanles seem to be fine.

Ever notive if you add Y and Mc to a word it makes it funny. For instance my personal favorite, Moochy McMoocherson. Now you try. Post your redition of a word. Damn, I just realized I am getting way tired, I think I'm starting to crash off my sugar and caffien. Even If I do pick up Halo 2 I don't know if I will be able to play it untill later . Maybe Jon will come bye tonight and well rock it togather. besides I need him to take my MOBO out of my computer. Its funny as you get tired, you tend to start to forget stuf, like what you had planned to write about.

Ok I just turned on HBO and their is the strangest movie on that involve Houdini, Sir Arthor Conin Doyal (the guy who wrote Sherlock Holmes) and some girls that have managed to take pictures of real fairys. Can Any one explain this movie to me?

well I moff to see if I can score a copy I'll post if I'm successful

Computer Nerds:

I wanted to put something clever after the colon, but I can't think of anything that fits with this story. Any suggestions?

So for those of you that don't know my new computer that I've been bragging about for the past month, decided to die on me. My brother, Jon, came out a couple of times to try to fix it, but it was a no go. His best estimates is that the MOBO or MAINBOARD (that's how computer nerds say it) or the grafix card took a dump. The damn thing is an $1800.00 paper-weight! I don't blame Jon (as of right now), but at first I was pissed, only because.......Why cant stuff work out for me? Oh well, shit happens and maybe I have bad karma right now, at least I'm taking solid shits for the first time in awhile! I'll just chalk it up too the universe balancing it self.

So with Jon out of ideas and my lack of access to a NASA scientist the next best thing is to take it too a computer repair shop. Jon suggested CompUSA, but they wanted a $100.00 just to look at it. So I called OPARC, I don't know what that stands for, but their the local computer shop around the corner. OPARC only wanted $50.00 to look it over, but Jon said they might not have the tools like CompUSA for diagnosing the problem. Well I took a risk and went with OPARC, I don't know if that was the right choice in retrospect.

First off, I think I should have, and would really have liked Jon to take my computer in, because he built the damn thing and he knows all the computer jargon.

Now to the story. As I entered the store I was immediately greeted by what I can only desrcibe as a Meatloaf (the singer) look-a-like, and a man so socially inept and nerdy that he is the spitting image of the computer nerd guy from War Games. You know the guy at the beginning of the movie who Mathew Brodricks character goes to to learn about how to hack into Joshua and the nerdy dude in the back starts shouting out information from the background, like "tell him about the backdoor." well it was just like that, too the T! Man, movie stereotypes never lie. The first thing the nerdy guy said, before I even opened my mouth was "that's one of Anthony's builds," that's when Meatloaf came over and said "let me take a look." The nerdy guy again said "I know that work, Anthony built it!" Meatloaf interrupted and said "I don't think so." I think its interesting in the computer world how a custom PC comes before the customer.
Meatloaf and the nerd from War Games talked back and forth wile peering into my PC for a couple of minutes, before actually asking me who built it. I said " my brother built it for me" Meatloaf replied " I told you it wasn't one of ours!" The nerd from War Games just ignored this and said some computer mumbo jumbo, and then Meatloaf asked me what the problem was? I told him "the damn thing wasn't booting, at all, not even a BIOS screen!" Meatloaf replied with an "uh." The nerd from war games started rambling off things to check from the background, I couldn't understand his computer ramblings. Meatloaf replied with "I don't think it's that." The nerd kept rambling things off, check this, check that, Meatloaf just ignored him, he was in computer fix it mode.

Meatloaf then began to take my PC over to a desk and and started removing the case cover all while talking to me. "wow" he said, "who built this for you (he must have bben to engrosed in my PC and ignored my earlyier answer)? It's nice!" He then started looking at all the parts inside. I couldn't help to notice his lip quivering while he was inspecting it. As he was looking it over and plugging stuff in, This black guy walked through the door, with a bag of computer parts. I cant remember his name so I'll just call him Nerdy Black Guy.

Nerdy Black Guy, what you looking at Meatloaf? Meatloaf replied I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with this. "Damn that's a nice machine" said the Nerdy Black Guy, "Did you build that?" I told him "no, my brother did." that peeked Meatloafs interest, "oh ya" he said, "what's your brother due for a living, who does he work for?" The Nerdy Black Guy was now inspecting the machine. I told Meatloaf " he's a janitor (that's how Jon likes me to describe his job title, as opposed to muchi McMucherson)" The Nerdy Black Guy said "a janitor built this?" Meatloaf then said with a smirk "well, its a really clean job inside!" The Nerdy Black Guy then started commenting on the lights and how cool it looked.

Meatloaf asked me a few more questions about what I had been doing with my PC. He noticed the OC fan, and thought maybe I burned it out. I told him, I only use my PC for gaming, and that I had a weird experience during an extended play with Battlefield 1942, when the screen went all bright. Meatloaf then said "maybe you blew your grafix card?" he then began to unscrew it. Meatloaf yelled over to the Nerdy Black Guy "Hay, are those the grafix cards I asked you for?" "Ya" replied the Nerdy Balck Guy "why?" "because I'm going to swap this one out and see if one of those works." This would bring all the employees of the store over to gawk.

It was almost like Moses saying "behold The BFG Geforce 68000 GT OC!" The Nerdy Black Guy was in awe. He asked "can I hold that? I just want to see what it feels like!" Now, I don't know about you, but I don't see the big deal over a piece of hardware, but Im not some poor computer nerd. I thought he was joking, So I just kind of grinned, trying to be polite. Meatloaf then handed me my grafixs card, while the Nerdy Black Guy set another grafixs card on the edge of my case. Meatloaf responded " what are you doing? Watch it, you might scratch the case!" The Nerdy Black Guy came closer to me and said "come on man let me hold it!" "Ok" I replied. So I handed it over to him. He then said to me " hay man, how fast can you chase a black guy?" Not knowing how to respond to that, I once again politely grinned.

The presence of the BFG Geforce sparked the interest of an employee who was installing light bulbs. I'll call him Skinny Lightbulb Installer Guy (SLIG). He came over and was talking up a storm. "So you mainly play Games?" I responded with a "yes, I had my brother build this so I could play Doom 3." SLIG was quick to ask a barrage of questions. "How many Megahertz you got?" "what's your frame rate?" "What kind of processor you got?" "How much memory you got in that?" Whats that Geforce got in it?" "I'm running Doom 3 on this Bla Bla Bla...(insert tech talk) at about 50 fps what are you getting?" All I could respond with was "ah..... It works great with the settings maxed...?" It didn't mater because he was already looking in my PC like it was the Ark of the Covenant.

At this point Meatloaf was unhooking and rehooking things, checking the hard drive first and moving on to the memory. I might add his touch, didn't appear to be very gentle. He then unhooked my memory, and said " I'll try some I got" he then placed my Memory on the edge of my case and began to walk away when he quickly turned back and picked it back up and handed it to me. "you better hold on to these, I don't want someone walking off with it!" The nerdy Black guy seemed to think this comment was directed towards him and replied with a "what, Meatloaf you don't trust Me?" I couldn't help but think, you may be a Black Nerdy Guy, but your still black. Normally I wouldn't be predgidice, but after his previous comments, and walking in with a bag of grafix cards, I wasn't taking any chances. Meatloaf then reappeared from the back where I could hear the Nerd from War Games saying " Whats wrong with it, did you try this?" Meatloaf then plugged in the new memory and turned my PC on. It made this awful beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. Meatloaf said "huh......It must not like that memory........I don't get it, its the same type as you had in their?" He then removed the memory and placed it back in a different order. Once again, he got the same awful Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. Meatloaf then said " I think its safe to say its your Mother board, I can't think of anything else it could be." I told him that all the parts should still be under warranty. Meatloaf then replied with " you got a good system there, I don't know why you went cheap with the ABIT IC7-G....I mean with all the great stuff you got in there...It just seems kind of odd." He then went on to suggest a couple of different motherboards like a Pentium instead of an even exchange. He claimed, "you get a three year warranty if you put a Pentium Chip in A Pentium Board."

Meatloaf then handed me the screws to my case and said "you can probably put the cover back on better than I can." his last words to me were "don't worry about the fifty either, I'm not going to charge you since I couldn't fix it!" Well that was nice....I guess. Good thing he didn't charge me, because he didn't do anything Jon hadn't already done. This makes me think I should have taken the damn thing to CompUSA, but who knows, they wouldn't have had a problem charging me a hondo and doing the same crap Meatloaf and his band of socially inept misfits did. I also wouldn't have had this bizarre experience to write about . My CompUSA story would have gone like this: what's wrong with your PC? OK we'll check it out, we'll call you when we know whats wrong. Although its a bland story, I think It would have been less stressful on me, but then again, Jon never would have known about the admires of his work. huh, a janitor that builds Killer PC's on the side, go figure.

Finally In

Bout time, after 5 days of trying to log into my blog, I was finally able to get in. It only took thirty plus tries. I don't know what it was, but I was only able to get as far as the blogger dashboard. I don't know if it was this A-N-T-I-Q-U-A-T-E-D ( that's me trying to sound out antiquated) piece of crap for a computer, or this sites fault? I defragged the hard drive, so maybe that was the solution, or perhaps coincidental. Unfortunately I'm tired so I dont feel like writeing what I had prepared, so come back monday for an update, that is if I can get this to work again?

GO VOTE !!!

If your reading this and its before 6PM and you haven't voted yet, For Christ sake, GO VOTE! Interesting bit of info, If you live in Wisconsin, You can register to vote and vote at the same time today, so no excuse cheese heads, but for the rest of you that didn't register your S-O-L, and shame on you. Heres some more food for thought, In Austraila if you don't vote your subject to a $500 fine and time in jail! Enough reading GO VOTE, even you Jon, I dont want to here how your vote doesn't count MUMBO JUMBO mumbo jumbo MUMBO JUMBO mumbo jumbo (thats an inside joke). For those of you that did vote you may read on.

Total System Failure

Where to start? Well I guess I'll first say that all my projects are complete. The room is complete. All the walls are painted and the floor has been installed. All that's left is to move all of my crap back in. This is where I have had much debate with my parents. Instead of just setting my room up like it was before, I briefly mention, as an idea, that maybe I would change my bed into a loft, so I would have a more space. This was just an idea and I said it aloud briefly in front of my mother. Now my mother likes to choose what she here s from me, and took my comment as my intention. After a bit of rethinking I didn't like the idea, but it was too late for that.

My father was also very fond of the idea, so he went out and bought the extra bolts to set it up. Arguing over this was an exercise in futility. My dad just kept saying try it out for a week and then see if you want to change it. Oh my god, what am I twelve? For Christ sake I'm almost a grown man and I have to sleep in a bed three feet from the ceiling! To top off my feeling like I am being treated like I'm twelve, my mom had me parade my Optimus Prime costume around to the neighbors. What is this insanity I live with? Things keep getting stranger by the day.

That reminds me, Halloween was a complete bust for me. I put all that time into making my costume, and I didn't get to go anywhere in it. Ok, I did go to one party, but I hardly would consider it a party. It was a total waste. By the time I got to it everyone was completely trashed. Let me say party's aren't very fun, when you don't drink. I will say everyone was impressed by my costume, I'm assuming, by how they were pawing at it. Doug's girl friend/fiance was completely trashed and manages to pull off my exhaust pipe on my left arm. After five minutes of standing around in a giant cardboard Optimus suit that you can't move around in, gets tiring and quickly looses its charm. Initial shock value aside, their was nothing left for me to do except disrobe and try to mingle amongst drunk strangers. Not fun when you struggle with anxiety. Then when I decided I wanted to leave, it started to poor outside. Great now I have to pack my stuff in the rain. Packing my costume into my car in the first place was difficult enough. Damn body portion was to big to fit in without about a half hour of reposistioning it into the back seet of my tiny Ford Escort Zx2. Don't let the Zx2 part fool you, its got no power what so ever, but I digress. With the rain came cold gloomy weather. This put me into a further funk. I think I have seasonal depression. Because when I woke up Saturday I felt like crap and I didn't want to do anything. I had requested the day off work in anticipation of going out to some costume contest. My state of mind during the day put the kibosh on those plans, along with lack of my friends wanting to do anything special. You can't exactly go out in a giant robot suit by your self. Besides it takes two people to put my costume on, I cant move my arms, once the body part is on, and I can hardly walk in the damn thing. Oh ya if you were expecting pics of me in my Optimus gi, that brings me to my next part

Since my parents have been treating me like I'm twelve I decide to act like I'm twelve. With my new loft bed up,and my dresser underneath it along with my desk and computer, I decide to make the most of it, by turning it into a little fort I like to call my fortress of solitude, or den of darkness, or how about alcove of despair. I'll try to describe it as best as I can to give you a picture, since I can't post one, I'll get to that in a second. So my bed is five feet in the air, and against the wall. Underneath my dresser sticks out two inches or so leaving a about three feet of space behind it under the bed. I put a small book case I found lying around in that space. My desk is also under the bed horizontally against what would be the foot of the bed, but on the inside. This creates a small passage way about a foot wide to enter. Over the entrance I hung a towel that tucks in under my mattress, and hangs to the floor. This creates illusion when your sitting inside of being in a small claustrophobic space. I was going to say a cockpit, but whatever its my little private space. Plus, It allows for me to set my speakers up in surround sound.

Now with everything in order I was going to try my new set up out. Unfortunately things wouldn't work out in my favor. When I booted up my computer a new menu window popped up about resetting my start up. Not knowing what it was all about, I decided it was best to leave my start up as is, so I hit Ok, and then Ok again, when it told me I should restart my computer if changes were made. To be safe I decided to hit the restart button. This was a big mistake, because my computer didn't restart. The monitor just went blank, but the computer was still running. I waited for a couple of minutes thinking something would happen, but nothing, so I hit the reset button nothing, so I hit the power button, nothing. My computer didn't want to do anything that I wanted it to do. This left me with only one option, to turn it off at the power source (Dun Dun Dunn). I then waited a minute and turned it back on, this brought up the safe mode menu, which asked which way I wanted to boot up my computer. This too didn't work, because it wouldn't register my keyboard as working. Ah the hell with it I said And decide it was best to turn it off again. Once again the power button wouldn't work, so I had to turn off the power source again. I thinks its best I leave this problem to my computers creator (Dun Dun Dunn) Jon! I think it could be a virus, because my computer crashed twice today. And the other day, after a stint with Batlfield 1942 online, my color got all screwed up, my screen was all bright, and wouldn't go away even after I messed with the monitor settings. If your wondering how I am posting this, I am using my old slow hunk-o-junk computer, at least its reliable. That's why I cant post pics.

One last quick note, my old man still aint drinking, and today he took his first solid one, in over two years. Man was it a stinker, and it left stains in the bowl.