More randomness

"It's alright everyone, it's only Death!" -- Mrs. Claus to the elves on the Billy and Mandy Save Christmas special!

"I would have expected those Lovable Ponies to put up such a fight." -- The Grim Reaper

"Someday I'll save Christmas with a vampire!" -- The Grim Reaper as a kid in school

???

Why does the concept of "gel douche" bother me so much?

Snow Day

Today, we had about 7 inches of snow fall. So, schools were closed and Juri didn't have to work. I am on the start of my four-day weekend, so I didn't have work either. So, today was spent relaxing about the house. The kids and I played Kingdom Hearts, and Juri played Pirates. Then, we decided to go play in the snow for a while. Sean jumped around on this huge snow mountain made by the snow plows. I shoveled our driveway clear, working up quite a sweat! I started taking off my jacket and sweater, leaving my t-shirt on. I had the majority of the driveway cleared up when Juri asked if I'd take off my t-shirt too! I was pretty surprised by the request, but I obliged her anyway. What can I say, I love my wife, and I was pretty hot from all the shoveling, despite the fact that it was 34 degrees outside! So, I finished up the snow shoveling topless. It was pretty funny, and Juri took pictures, of course. The rest of the day was spent relaxing inside, enjoying some pizza, and watching some cartoons before the kids went to bed.

Beatmania IIDX

I have fallen in love with a new rhythm music game called beatmania IIDX! It is so difficult, but so fun! The objective of the game is to "play" a song by pressing keys on a special controller in time with the notes that fall down from the top of the screen. The more complicated the song is, the more difficult it is to play the song properly. The controller has seven buttons arranged similar to a piano, except that they are farther spaced, and a turntable to play special scratch notes in the song. Pictures speak louder than words...




The game definitely gives the feeling of actually making the song like a live DJ act. It is truly an exciting and unique experience! Even though I don't have the turntable controller yet, playing with my DualShock controller is still a good time. Matt and I have been toying around with the idea of building a controller ourselves, though I don't know how I'd go about making a turntable...

Christmas Lights

Over the last week, I've been working on getting our Christmas lights hung on our house. Unfortunately, we had a problem with our lights! Every string had half the lights out. At first, I wanted to just replace all of our lights, but money is tight with the Christmas season, so I figured I could just fix it. I had a tough time at first figuring out the problem because I was so frustrated. Eventually, through the constant prodding of my lovely wife (I love you!), I hunkered down to figure out the problems. Turns out that we had multiple bad connections in parallel sections of the light strings. Using a multimeter, I narrowed down the bad lights and replaced them all. Juri even helped me out, speeding the work along nicely! So, now all I have to do is hang them!