Mad points for Grondin
Last Christmas, Vikki got some tarot cards from someone, and it came with a little write-up as to how to make the spread and whatnot, but it didn't really go into any detail about what any card meant. Though she wanted the tarot cards, she was bummed at the lack of information that came with it to do anything useful.

This year, one of the things I got her was a beginner's book to tarot. I was hoping she didn't have one already, because she barely mentioned tarot over the last 12 months.

She was instantly excited with her book. She went around telling everyone at work what I got her multiple times. It made it hard for her to do her job; she was flipping through the pages all day. She kept going on about how it was the most intuitive gift she could have gotten, how all of her other friends would have never thought to get this for her, and how I was her hero. In her eyes -- aside from someone getting her a new car -- it is not possible for anyone else in her life to get her a better gift. She doesn't care if she gets nothing else this Christmas. I made her entire holiday. Apparently, I've hit a grand slam in the 9th inning for the win.

The way she was harping about the book all day and how thoughtful I am was quite touching to me. In fact, her happiness rubbed off onto me: I don't care if I get nothing for Christmas; the fact that I made her as happy as I did is enough of a gift for me.

Wow, that was corny.

The rest of my Christmas Eve wasn't too bad. After a short day of work (or, six hours of Vikki praising me), I took a nap and eventually took off to my mom's. Only my sister's family, my mom, and I were there. Nothing incredibly noteworthy happened. I ate some food and scored some stuff. It looks like Mom's computer blew up when she plugged in a gas generator two weeks ago, so I have a fun project to work on. Yay.

Me and Sis are going to Dad's this morning. Then, we'll be coming back to Hillsboro, I'll gather my goods, and head back to Keene and work tomorrow. Whee. Dual wielding

Me: i bought a new lcd monitor for my pc today
Me: because my old one wouldn't power on
Me: so i got the new one up and running
Jurek: nice
Me: then i tested the old one for shits and giggles
Me: and the old one still works
Me: so now i got an extra monitor with no purpose
Me: and i can't return the new one without getting charged a 15% fee
Jurek: what was the problem with the old one?
Jurek: I mean why didnt it turn on?
Me: i don't know
Me: it worked fine, then i moved, and when i set it up in the new place, it wouldn't turn on
Jurek: hmmm strange
Me: the light on the power adapter brick thing was green like it was supposed to be
Me: so i assumed maybe something in the monitor died
Me: but a day later and it's working like nothing ever happened
Me: so uh... do you want to buy a monitor? ;)
Jurek: LOL
Jurek: uuhm
Me: i bet shipping overseas is insane... you'll have to cover that ;) [He lives in Germany.]
Jurek: I got a working 19 inch "old" monitor..I'm fine *g+
Me: hehe

Yeah. My old LCD came back to life and just started working again. I guess it couldn't deal with a ten minute drive across town and I had to let it warm back up for 24 hours. That almost makes sense. </sarcasm>

So I went to the local computer store and picked up a Samsung Syncmaster T190. It was the cheapest thing I could buy with a DVI port: $199.99. And lucky for me, Brown checked the mail today and there was a $40 off coupon for purchases of $199 or more, so I only spent $160. Woo. That's a steal. Even on Newegg can't give me that good of a deal, and I buy almost everything from them!

But it was $160 I should have never had to spend. It wasn't until after I opened the box that I determined my old monitor worked again.

The Samusung is better in every way, but I actually like my old monitor better. The Samsung one cannot be tilted. I could return it and lose $24, but I think I'll see if I can pawn it off to someone at work. Or maybe I should come to love the Samsung and pawn off the Xerox. Or maybe I should get a damn desk and see these things at eye level before coming to a decision.

My video card has two DVI ports on it, so I can (and did) run a dual monitor display. It's not practical, though, as the monitors have different dimensions. Sore.
I got up early yesterday morning and dismantled my bed, set my PC aside from my very dusty computer desk, and lined up everything for The Big Move.^TM When the time came, Brown and I loaded my six or seven things into the U-Haul and were ready to go in like 15 minutes. What got loaded in there took up half of the trailer, and knowing Nicole had a hell of a lot more stuff that I ever will, we unloaded my couch and whatnot into the new place before heading off to hers.

Wow. Her boxes of stuff never end. We spent at least an hour loading the trailer with all sorts of shit and when the truck was full, she still had a few carloads of stuff needing to be moved. Fuck that. She's on her own with those. I still have a bunch of my own stuff, too, mainly the TV area.

We managed to break both computer desks moving them into the new place. She lost the wheels on hers, so it's still a workable unit. Mine, we totally shattered one side of the unit merely dragging it across the carpet. Snap!

We got some pizza and 2-liters and lived off of those for lunch and dinner. We left each room cluttered with all sorts of irrelevant shit. I put my bed together and tried to get my desktop PC to work (my monitor doesn't turn on anymore, wtf?) and called it a night. Brown mainly dealt with kitchen stuff.

I was sore yesterday, and I'm feeling it today. My neck and shoulders are in a world of hurt, and I can't make it up the stairs empty-handed without feeling it. It hurts to make a fist.

I spent my morning moving whatever I deemed unnecessary into the basement or upstairs while Brown situated her bedroom. Now we can walk around a little bit. Yay.

I don't really know what I'm going to do from lunch time onwards. Once they come around to plow at 2:30ish, I'll probably take off and get more stuff out of my old place, perhaps pick up a new lcd monitor, and some basic food items.

This laptop has saved my ass a lot since I got it. Woo. Pack rat
Brown and I got our condo keys during our lunch break today. Yay. Now we can start moving our stuff in.

I was under the impression that the landlord were going to fix up some of the wallpaper and do a paint job. The only thing that changed since I saw the place a month ago was that the living room got painted off-white. It used to be red. I didn't mind the red. It was everything else that I minded, and none of it got touched. Wallpaper is peeling everywhere, and the patterns are pretty queer. My bedroom is quite effeminate: faded pinkish carpeting and a gay floral wallpaper. Boo. I can deal, though; I got the bigger of the two bedrooms.

Brown came over to help me move my coffee table into the new place in exchange to help her move a few things. The coffee table was the only object I moved. When we got to her place, we spent an hour just loading up her car full of useless things. Who really needs six crates of books? I can understand if they were reference books or something, but how often does one read the same novel over and over? Should have sent it all to the dumpster instead. I sure got the short end of the stick tonight.

When that was done, I went to play some pool at McCue's. Though the season and playoffs are over, they had some sort of coronation tonight. Free pool and free food. They gave out all sorts of awards. If I didn't skip a week, I could have scored a "perfect attendance" award, which was a shot glass with the McCue's logo and my name on it. Maybe next time. Not a whale any more.
I suppose it might be worth noting that I'm getting violently raped in this year's fantasy football outing. I haven't made any mention of this season, but ever since draft day, I knew it wasn't going to be worth talking about. And it really hasn't.

The biggest turn-off was that it was supposed to be a $50 buy-in, but no one but me brought the money to put into the pot. If you don't have it up front, good luck trying to collect it later in the year. Also, there were only eight teams. And because there was only eight teams, every team made the playoffs (which were last week). So, the first 13 weeks of the season really don't mean anything. Having 10 or 12 teams makes for a much more meaningful league.

I thought I drafted pretty well, but my team just fell apart. I had the #1 pick, and LT didn't do shit this season. Larry Johnson kept sitting on the bench and/or getting suspsended. Vince Young decided to run away. Matt Leinart didn't get the starting job. Deuce McAllister got busted for steroids or something. Plaxico Buress shot himself in the thigh. What the hell?

I would have done better if I just drafted Brady. :p

In six years of doing this, regardless of if it's a work league or not, I always won in the first round of the playoffs. This year, I didn't. I guess the streak had to come to an end some time, and it might as well be this year since nothing was at stake. I pack a chainsaw.
I got stuff to type, but I don't really have the time I want to dedicate to making a well-written post. Hmm. I think I'm going to shoot for mediocrity this time around.

We had this crazy ice storm Thursday night, and a bunch of people didn't show up to work on Friday. A lot of them lost power. Keene itself did not lose power, but if you head 10 minutes in any direction, all of those towns were screwed. Trees were everywhere, and hundreds of thousands of people still don't have power four days later. It's been declared a federal emergency.

I went to my mom's on Saturday to pick up some things, and it was neat to see all of the trees encased in ice. With the sun shining down on them, the views were scintillating. In my opinion, they were way cooler than that stupid snowy look I'm getting have to see over the next four months. I didn't have my digital camera handy, and I took a bunch (of what I assume will be) crappy shots from my fancy 1-cent cell phone I got a couple weeks back. I was looking forward to seeing how they came out, but to my chagrin, my phone didn't come with a USB cable so I could transfer the pictures to my PC. That's ok, though. The odds of a picture from a cell phone without zoom being taken while driving actually being any good are slim to none. I'd put my money on none.

My mom has a small propane heater in one corner of the house, so she's kinda ok. When I went upstairs to get what I came for, I could see my breath. Brr.

The store up the street has power. The nearby gas station had a vehicle at every pump three cars deep. My mother's tree-filled backyard is going to make a nice golf course now.

The road to Mom's was clear, but there were several snapped trees along the side of the road. On the way back to Keene, these guys were trimming limbs with what essentially were 30-foot poles with a chainsaw at the end of each. Not sure how that's possible. Whatever works, I guess.

Mom and Sister still are without power. Dad didn't lose any, but rumor has it that the main streets of Nashua are without it (as of Sunday). I overheard one guy at work, and he's not expected to get power back until next Wednesday. Ooph.

I don't remember it ever being this bad. I think the longest I've ever had to go without power (aside from camping) was maybe 12 hours. Four or more days sounds unimaginable, especially if I couldn't geocache to pass the time. :p But at least I'm living in Keene, which somehow made it unscathed. The other side of town
A week from Monday, I get the keys to my new place. Two weeks from now, I move. Woo. Good thing I'm about done with Christmas.

It's going to be a slow move for the most part. During the week of the 15th, Vikki and myself are gonna move bits and pieces of my stuff over. On the 20th, Nicole's dad is renting a U-Haul truck and we'll take care of all of our big stuff then. After that's all squared away and I have everything out of my current apartment, I'll do some cleaning so I can get all of my security deposit back. And hopefully Brown and I will have the new place in decent enough shape to host a New Years / housewarming party of sorts.

I question how good such a party will be; we will have been living there for two weeks. We won't have a PS3 by then. Or my awesome speakers, let alone a receiver to plug them into. And it's highly unlikely we'll find a good pool table to throw into the basement in time. And neither of us has any interest in paying for cable TV, so we won't even be able to sit back and watch the ball drop. Hmm. Antonio says he come by with his Wii and Guitar Hero, which would make for an alright night.

Perhaps a card tournament will go down that night. That's kinda what we did last year. Be it Cribbage or Skip Bo, I ain't scared to take on all comers. :) Get me some fancy Ballatore champagne and I'll be good to go.

Two entries in one day? Wow. I haven't been able to get two in a month as of late. I must be full of free time. Just trying to play catch up, more or less. There's lots of things that have happened that I haven't bothered to write about. For those who are wondering, Thanksgiving was ok. There wasn't any stuffing at either parent's house, so I burned them both down. Gotta teach 'em a lesson, you know.

I'll probably add a couple back entries today or tomorrow or whenever to keep older happenings in sort of a chronological order, but they'll still all appear on the front page. Silence!
I kill you!

I've done almost all of the Christmas shopping I'm going to do, and in the process, I picked up a couple things for myself. One of my DVD/CD burners were on the fritz, so I got a replacement drive for $20. It's pretty amazing to see how cheap they've become in recent years. I remember five years ago when retail stores were just getting the "new" 8x dvd burners, and they were selling them for $500. Damn, sucka.

I've been eyeing this video card for a long time, ever since it had a "cheap" price of $200. With the mail-in rebate, one can get a passively cooled, overclocked beast of a 9600 GT for a mere $85. That's so ridiculously priced.

I went to my mom's today to get all of my Christmas and computer goods, and I've just finished swapping out parts and installing drivers and whatnot. I underestimated the size of the video card. It's just as big as my old 6600 GT with the third party cooler on it (ie, huge).

Despite having my new found graphics power, I'm not really interested in seeing how certain high-end games run. There are a few games -- Oblivion comes to mind -- that I couldn't even attempt to run on my old setup. But now that I've pretty much replaced everything over the last six months, I should give it another shot. I'll have plenty of time to do so this winter.

My old video card works perfectly fine. There was no real need for me to upgrade it, as I don't game like I used to in college. And it could run most games beautifully. The after market cooler I put on it was meant to keep the card silent, and it's been quite noisy as of late, so I finally decided to take the plunge on something with no moving parts. That makes my stock CPU fan the loudest part of my computer again, which ain't that loud to begin with. I'm big on silence. Proper training
Vikki made and brought me lunch at work today. No one has done that for me in the last ten years. That makes her beyond awesome.

I didn't tell her to, either. And I'm not sure what made her do so. Perhaps it's because of my pimp hand. Or maybe it has to do with the fact that all women have to make sandwiches for their man if they know what's good for them. And mine was even cut in half! What's interesting is that she didn't have enough time this morning to make herself a lunch. Just mine. How touching.

She and I aren't dating exclusively, either. Hmm.

Another interesting note is that if I supply her with bread and meat, she said she'd make sandwiches for me every day. Damn, I must have some pull, eh? :)