The 28th We came in 2nd the other night in trivia after a short battle for 1st place. We're slowly moving up in the ranks and will be millionaires soon. What am I saying? It's late. I went for dinner at the Brothers Two tonight with Jill and her family. It was pretty fun and I got to eat good food and sample other people's desserts. Afterwards, we came back here and watched Hero. What a great movie. The whole thing is gorgeous and every shot is amazing. I have to go rent Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon again sometime and should see The House of Flying Daggers too if it ever comes here. I love those movies. There just isn't anything like them and it's nice to see a movie not made in Hollywood for a change. The 25th Another case of white, wintery diarhhea has come and gone. We got pounded with a huge storm over the weekend and Jill and Melissa were storm-stayed here again. It seems to be some kind of weekend, winter ritual now. Get a bunch of snow dumped on us, get stuck inside for a day or two, eat a ton of homemade dinners, and otherwise enjoy the wonder that is an island winter. And we had a storm only a few days earlier while I was visiting my grandparents for a couple days. I managed to go see them in between storms instead of being forced to stay home because of a storm. Lots of sleeping, eating, card playing and otherwise being lazy. Nice and warm, and away from the horrible cold and mounds of snow. At least now we can get out of the house and carry on with our lives. I need to get out of the house so badly and go see a movie or something. Trivia tomorrow night will be good, especially since I can play air hockey again. Speaking of movies, the movie phone person seems to alternate between the usual woman and some guy now. The last time I checked she managed to screw up some more names. Jan 14 to Jan 20 Anna Paquin - Anna Packin Jennifer Garner - Jennifer Gardiner She's terrible. As much as it bothers me that she can't pronounce these actors' names correctly, it at least provides me with some mild entertainment. The 17th Another storm, another day being storm-stayed with Nathan, Melissa and Jill, and another day spent eating and preparing more meals for more eating. I swear, if we continue making huge meals, cookies and eating other sweets and miscellaneous junk foods that in a matter of a few weeks we're all going to be stuck in this house for a while. Not because of storms either but because we'll be 800 lbs. each and can't move from the couch or even fit through the doorway for that matter. The 16th When it comes to ordering meals at restaurants, it would seem that I am doomed to constantly have my order messed up or not be able to get what I want at all. I'm used to this now—I even find it mildly amusing—but it does get really tiring. The worst is when I order something and the waiter or waitress makes it seem like I did something wrong by ordering what I want. Maybe it's happened to you before. You know, some item is on their menu and you order it. They then look at you as if to say, "Why would you order that? You know we don't have that even though it's on our menu." The most recent incident happened this weekend at the Zellers Diner. There were 4 prominent specials on the front of their menu. I decided that I would order the Tuscan Tuna Salad Sandwich with Bacon and Cheddar Soup combo. So let's review: a tuna sandwich with a specific type of soup indicated as part of the combo that includes coffee, tea or a soft drink. The waitress takes my order but when I say the type of soup she looks confused and says that they only have minestrone or vegetable soup. What bothers me is the fact that not only does she not realize they even have this type of soup on their menu, she seems to think I didn't understand her when she first stated what types of soup they had when she first arrived at our table. So I could have pointed to the combo on the menu and informed her that the only reason I ordered that specific combo was to try the clearly indicated Bacon and Cheddar Soup. But I acted as I normally do, I simply gave in and got the sandwich and minestrone soup instead. No messed up restaurant meal would be complete without one final kicker though. When I got my bill, the coffee I ordered was not included in the price of the combo that comes with coffee, tea or soft drink. Not very surprising actually. I should eat at home more often. The 11th I just happened to check the Apple site tonight and found that they're advertising the new iPod shuffle. It's pretty cool but not my thing since it's so small and doesn't have all the bells and whistles that mine came with. A nice little device, though, and a good price it would seem. But then there was the big splash ad for the Mac Mini which is pretty sweet. Again, not really something I would want but I wouldn't complain if one were given to me. I like to be able to upgrade and mess around with the insides of a Mac. It's so damn small though that I'd like the extra space on my desktop and I love how minimalistic it is. It has the same appeal as the G4 Cube but not quite as attractive looking. I like the blocky slab look but the Cube just had a cooler design. If I were to suggest a computer for someone wanting to spend $600 or so, this would be the one. I went over to my parents' place tonight for dinner. It was my dad's birthday yesterday so my mom made a big BBQ steak dinner. And then there was cheesecake...mmm, cheesecake. So I had all of that plus some cookies and then I get the late night munchies even though I really shouldn't be hungry. So instead of havin something small like an orange or a granola bar I made a big plate full of chili cheese nachos. Bring on the weird dreams and twisted nightmares. The 9th We went to Eva's for breakfast today and I wasn't the only one who didn't get homemade whole wheat toast. The rest of them felt the blues of my dining bad luck. In this case, I won't be adding that incident to my ongoing list of orders gone awry. I went over to Mike and Courtney's tonight to play some Mad Gab. Their baby, Rowan, is quite possibly one of the chubbiest babies I've ever seen. And he definitely takes after Mike because he looks just like him and is twice the size of any other two month old baby. Mike had the deep fryer going and made deep-fried bologna and potato chips. He was experimenting and I decided to at least try some even though I really don't like bologna or the idea of bologna much. It was surprisingly good. Not exactly a healthy snack but worth a try if you're itching to try something new with bologna and batter. The 5th Jill stopped by after work today. The plan was to make a big dinner and she came up with the great idea of having some fondu for dessert. I'm happy to say the spicy chicken stir-fry in black bean and garlic sauce over sticky rice was damn good. Honestly, is there a dish black bean sauce can't make better? I think not. But as good as the stir-fry was, it didn't compare to the exciting and delicious Toblerone fondu we had. Strawberries, canteloupe, pineapple, grapes and marble cake dipped in melted Tolerone is unbelievably good. All of the little honey nougat thingies drift to the bottom and as the chocolate gets eaten up it gets thicker and richer and chewy. Drool.... We have to have another fondu sometime soon because they're just way too addictive. The 2nd I went to Pizza Delight with Jill tonight and for dessert I got this butter tart skillet thing that was pretty damn good. I didn't exactly need it considering I was pretty full to begin with. Plus I've had enough sugar and sweets over the past 2 weeks to do me for the next 4 months or so. It probably didn't help that I also ate some of her apple skillet dessert after I finished mine. But hey, it's still sort of the holidays. Just a straggling weekend. Tomorrow I will officially start the healthier new year...ya, that's it. I've got all of the Snappy Loons box set packaging practically ready to go. Maybe "practically" isn't the right word considering the inlays and booklets still need to be cut, folded, stapled, and inserted into 15+ box sets. Hopefully the cutting part can be done tomorrow at Alfa-Graphics. That will save me some tedious work. Knowing my luck though, something will happen when they get cut, ruining the booklets and forcing me to get another batch printed at my own expense. The 1st Another year, another layout for IR. I've been meaning to do something on this theme for a while but procrastinated until just the other day to finally make a new design. Yet another idea I've stolen from my 11 years of watching Letterman. Last night saw most of the recent regulars at the house with a few extra people for New Year's Eve. Not a whole lot happened leading up to midnight. Some mediocre Michael's pizza. Some Playstation 2 and later on some Super Quiz with makeshift rules. Sharon and Shawn came over tonight to watch The Return of the King extended edition. Most of the extra footage in it was neat to see but it was easy to see why it was cut out. After that I watched Kill Bill Vol. 1 with Nathan and Melissa. So after 6 hours in the same chair watching movies, my back is in pretty rough shape.