Football picks round 1

Well football season is winding down again, so I'm going to pick the first round winners just in case any of you now 18 year olds feel like gambling on the games.

Cardinals vs. Falcons: Cardinals by 3 or less points
This game is going to be close. The Cardinals aced their division, but that's like opening a can with a stinger missile. It's not very hard. The Falcons have done well also, so that will keep them in the running. The Cardinals haven't been in the playoffs in a while, so it's going to be a little unfamilliar at first, but once they get their groove going, things will start to work out. The game will be very close though. It will either be decided by the Cardinals making a field goal or the Falcons missing one.

Colts vs. Chargers: Colts by less than 10 points
It's going to be close. The Chargers have been doing pretty well all season and they've put up some great numbers, but the Colts are doing really well recently and I don't think that even the Chargers will stop them, but it's going to be a close game.

Dolphins vs. Ravens: Ravens by 14 points
Two names that last year I never would have expected to write down now, but here I stand, doing just that. The Dolphins have been doing well all season, but when they win, it's often somewhat close. From what I've seen out of the Ravens (which admittedly isn't a lot), they are going to come out strong and walk over the Dolphins early, then hold a lead with a solid defense.

Vikings vs. Eagles: Eagles by 7-14 points
The Vikings can try all they want, but the Eagles will walk all over them and will possibly even beat them by a couple touchdowns. If not that, the Eagles will probably win by at least 10 points. I have little faith in the Vikings.

It did not slip my mind

I know, I know. I haven't posted in over a week. I figured I would get away with it because I was busy (hanging out with 90% of the people that read this blog). Anyway, I got busy with some DnD, but that is a story that comes later. I must get the first boring week of break out of the way.

For the first week of break, Sai and Orion were both gone and the weather was rather annoying, so I didn't leave the house much. I got some good gaming in on the NES until I stopped getting it to work and gave up. I also got some achievements that I had not yet gotten on old console games. I've been playing Guitar Hero 2 with Kathryn and she's getting better, so she's helping me get some achievements. She's actually as good on a controller as I am and she prefers to play that because she finds that the guitar can be somewhat confusing.

The streak of boringness was broken on Saturday when Davis called me up about whether I wanted to go to Maddy's white elephant party with him. I must admit, I had originally thought I wouldn't go(sorry Maddy if you're reading this), but Davis told me it wasn't going to be a boozer, so I agreed to go. Davis came over early and we watched Dungeons & Dragons, the movie, which was really stupid, but good since we came into it with very low expectations. The ending was a major wtf. After that, we went up the hill to Maddy's house and when we got there, Maddy, Andrew, Jack, and Erin were there already. Shortly after we got there, Sam and Jared showed up. The white elephant was successful. I got a bionicle book, a book called seven habits of highly successful teenagers, a half completed sudoku book (how efficient!), and a DINOSAUR BOOK!!!! It had a funny picture of what looked like Dino-oral. I'll have to show you guys sometime or post the picture.

We hung around for about half an hour after everyone left because of the 4-6 inches of snow that had fallen. On our way back to my house, Davis and I considered streaking which would have been cool, but it would have meant that we were naked and in close proximity, which is highly unacceptable. We watched Scarface when we got back to my house, then we had breakfast together if you catch my drift (I meant it literally).

On Sunday, Davis and I decided to walk all the way to Steven's house since there was no way we were going to be able to drive anywhere. We made it to Davis' house in 45 minutes, then spent over an hour there, which was unplanned. After that, we took 30 minutes to get to Steven's house. When we got there, we made him a DnD character and then waited for Orion, then hung out with Orion before going to his house to mooch some dinner off of his mom. After that, we hung out back at Steven's house until Charlie picked us up and drove me back to the top of Syre hill, which I walked down.

On Monday, I decided it was a good enough day to drive, so I did. We got some good DnD going that day. We played until about 6, when we went to Orion's house to mooch dinner again, then we came back and played until about 1am. I got almost home, then encountered a police scene and had to take the long way around, so I got home at 2am.
A good quote from the day: Sai: Oh, so getting up is a standard action? I guess I won't do that then

On Tuesday, I went to Steven's house around 2:00 and hung out with him, Sai, and Ashley. Ashley joined our party that day in DnD and it was kind of good because Davis decided to put us up against 48 enemies. The battle took 4 hours partly because of some training we had to do, but it was pretty fun.

On Wednesday, I drove mom to the grocery store to get some groceries that had yet to be gotten. After that, I spent the rest of the day cleaning up the downstairs. I found a lot of cool stuff and really got it clean.

On Christmas Day, I woke up to discover that I was awake before Kathryn and after Dad. Usually, Kathryn wakes me up, then we wake up the parents, but the order didn't really do anything this year. I got some good loot for Christmas, including Mercenaries 2 (Josh would be proud), and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed along with a couple older games, Forza 2 and the latest Destroy all Humans. I also got a charger for my batteries that plugs into the 360 and a new battery from my cousin. It was nice because he keeps saying I should get one and now he just gave me one. Also, I lost a battery pack, so it's nice to have another.

Right now, I'm finishing up an old game so I can move onto my new ones. Hopefully we can get some DnD going soon. Peace out until then.

Finally getting to see people.

So last week went pretty well. I had 2 concerts, got to see a bunch of people I hadn't in a while, and I hung out and got some good gaming in. Sorry, that's all the more intro you're getting here.

Tuesday:
I had an accounting final, but it was at 11:00. We were allowed to make a page of notes and I will have to post a picture of my epic one. It was quite an asset on the test (a little accounting humor there). The grades were posted later on and as usual, I beat the class average, but still didn't get as high as I wanted. After that, I played some Guild Wars and beat the Factions campaign with Steven and Orion.

Wednesday:
I had a "final" in Jazz Band at 11:00, which was basically just a good chance to get a longer rehearsal in. After that, I played more Guild Wars.

Thursday:
I had an English final at 8:00 am. I had forgotten how it felt to get up before 7:00 and I'm glad that this was the first time in 6 months that I had done this and that I was not going to do it again any time soon. The English final cosisted of writing an essay, which I spent a lot of time on so that I could maximize my time spent in a warm room. After that, I headed to the library and sat around and did some math until the math final started at 11:00. I think I actually did worse on the math final than I did all quarter long, but we'll see. Either way, I did pretty good in the class.

That night, I went to Sai's house where I met up with Steven, Eric, Ahmad, Oliver, and Ben. I went all in on the first hand and lost, but I had my DS, so it wasn't too boring. After a bunch of people left, I did as well. Sai, Steven, and I got in some good Tetris DS before that though.

Friday:
I spent most of the day gaming and finishing up old games that I was replaying. I'm playing old games because I haven't gotten a new console game in a year and Guild Wars is starting to get boring (as you would expect from a game after 900+ hours of play), so I've been replaying old console games.

Saturday:
I went over to Sai's for a bit early in the morning to give him Apollo Justice to borrow and he was letting me borrow his NES and a bunch of games. I am currently doing those, or trying to. The NES proves difficult to activate and I've only gotten Mario Brothers Original to work so far and it turned out that I had the Gameboy Color clone of that, so I burned through that game and set a new high score already. I haven't gotten the NES to work again, but hopefully I will soon. Unfortunately, Sai is 16 hours away, which is like the worst possible time difference because then we can only communicate early in the morning or late at night. If only there was a Sai hotline. Oh well.

That night, I had the big band dance. Our Jazz band had a very small part, only playing 4 songs. The other 2 bands played for an hour each, so I spent the time talking to mostly Davis, but also some other people there that I knew.

Sunday:
We didn't get much done. I left the house early in the day for lunch, but we were forced to stay inside because it was too icy that night, so mom's birthday dinner consisted of pizza.

Today:
I beat the original Mario Brothers today. Not much else has happened.

Well I'm going to go back to trying to get the NES working again. Peace out.

Things I Hate: 6

Hello and Welcome to the sixth installment of Things I hate. I know I said that last week would be my last for a while, but after I went back and read it over again, I realized it wasn't really that funny at all, so I decided if I could come up with something to hate on, I would do it. I wound up remembering something I hate and it goes with the holiday theme again, so sit back and relax and enjoy this weeks topic: Impractical presents.

Gift Cards (because nothing quite says Merry Christmas like "Here, go do your own damn shopping"):
So I don't know if any of you have gotten gift cards before, but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that you have. Gift cards are very unoriginal and not very thoughtful for a present unless you are getting them from a relative or friend who lives far away and didn't want to send a huge gift through the mail. In that case, it is probably acceptable. However, if you are going to see the person on the day of recieving the gift especially, you should not give a gift card. The point of giving a present is to pick out something the person could use or would like to have and to save them money by buying it for them and in doing that, it also saves them from having to actually go out and look for the item. When you get them a gift card, it's basically giving them money, but telling them that they have to go to a certain store and actually find something they like in that store. Now giving one of those "credit card" gift cards (like the AmEx one that is accepted wherever that card is) is better than just one store because it is less restrictive, but still the point remains.

Christmas ornaments on Christmas ("gee, thanks, I'll just hang this up for the remaining 12 hours of the day before I put it back in my closet for a year"):
Christmas ornament given on Christmas is probably the most pointless thing ever. What am I supposed to say? I mean, I already put all the ornaments I could fit on my tree, so I can't fit this on. I don't even know if I'll have room for it next year. I have enough ornaments already. It's only chance of getting on my tree next year is if I forget to take an ornament off this year and it gets lost permanently. Furthermore, what am I going to do with this? I can't really enjoy it that much. I'm going to be able to look at it for the rest of the day and then the next day, it goes back down in the closet and I don't see it for a year. What good does that do me?

Handmade things (See my pictures below this post for an example):
Ok so I used to get handmade vests back in the day from my Aunt. They were really nice and warm, but they were things I could never really wear and I don't know how she expected me to actually wear them. Unfortunately, I couldn't find my first vest from her, which was pale orange and borderline baby blue. I couldn't wear that! If I wear a vest, it has to be real colors (real colors are colors that don't need an adjective in front to explain how it relates to the real color) If you note the pictures, it was a vest made for Christmas of my freshman year at Shorewood. I know school pride is the "hip" thing nowadays, but this takes it to an extreme that I don't care to go to. Also, it has my last name on the back, making it easier for the bullies to tell who they just beat up for wearing that. I can appreciate the heart put into the present, but I can't appreciate its lack of practicality.

Getting chains of presents out of order (Well I just got an iHome, I wonder if I'm getting an iPod now?):
I've heard on tv of people doing this before, for Hanukkah or anything. People will have a big ticket item for somebody (say an iPod for example). To lead into that present, they will give somebody iPod headphones, accessories, and iTunes gift certificates (grr, gift certificates!!!). By the end of it all, the person getting the presents can't honestly expect not to get an iPod. It takes all the surprise away from the presents. If you're going to do this, just give them the iPod first and have them be surprised as they get different accessories for the iPod. That way, each present contains some mystery. On a side note, I still think iPods and iTunes are trying to destroy music, but that's another rant for another time.


That's all I got for now. If you are thinking of doing any of these things for somebody this holiday season, rethink it. Take them out to a nice dinner or something. Ask what they would actually like to get. I have to go now to study one unit for my math final. Happy hanuchristmakwanzakah and peace out until next year. (I'll still make regular posts)

This is the front. Notice the T-Bird.

And the back complete with my name, so the bullies know who to beat up.

Be ready for a short post.

Last week was incredibly boring. I barely talked to Steven the whole week. I played very little Guild Wars as well. The most exciting thing I did was make my DND character. The whole week was just filled with my classes winding down for the finals week this week. We had a test on logarithms in math which was the only thing that somewhat scared me about that class and I totally pwned logarithms like I should have back when I was a junior. They make sense now that I can change form. Also, I finally got over my fear of the 1996 movie "Mars Attacks." When I was 6, I was scared when I saw a preview of the movie in a grocery store and I was afraid that the aliens were in my closet, but I watched the movie (which was kind of funny) and I am not afraid of them anymore! Currently, I am getting run though a dungeon with Steven in Guild Wars. I praticed my trumpet today because the SCC jazz band is playing at the Big Band Dance on Saturday and you should all go to that. This week looks like it will be good. I have no classes today, then my accounting final tomorrow at 11, then a jazz band rehearsal/pizza party at 11 on wednesday, then an english final at 8 and a math final at 11 on thursday. After that, Davis comes back on Saturday, then Orion gets back next wednesdayish. Peace out until next monday.

Our kitchen has been restored.

As of yesterday, our kitchen remodel was officially completed. It is nice to have it completely done especially since the past 5 months have been just little things and our contractor would only show up once a month. Anyway, take a gander at the pictures below and see how the area has changed.

The old view down the hallway.

We got rid of a lot the two wall lights and got 6 much needed ceiling lights in the living room. We can actually see in that room at night now. The light at the top center of the before shot is still there, the picture just didn't line up exactly the same for the after shot.

The old popcorn ceiling with some asbestos inside it.

Smooth ceiling.

The old view up from the stairs.

We made the entrance to the kitchen line up with the stairs.

The old living room.

We got a new carpet, changed the placement of the chairs, put the old tv up there, and moved one of the cabinets to the left of the tan couch.

The old view at the kitchen.

You can see into the kitchen now. We painted the back wall darker to make it an accent wall. We have a bar now with lights. The column on the left of the bar is not part of a wall, just a lone column that we had to leave up because it was a support beam.

The old view back at the hallway.

The angle is different because of the TV that is now occupying the space where I originally took this picture from.

The old view into the kitchen.

The new view. There's a new computer desk where there was once living space. We got rid of the ceiling fan and the microwave switched sides.

The old view towards the dining room with the little peninsula by the tv.

The new view. No peninsula anymore and we ditched that little tv.

The old view of the hallway.

The new view. You can see again we lined up the entrance with the stairs and got a ton of new cabinets. What is cut off in the bottom left is a computer desk built into the wall between the cabinets and the sliding glass door.

The old oven that I believe had crapped out at this point.

The new oven that works well, but you can't read the clock from my height, so that's pretty much useless.

The old microwave.

The new, slightly more modern microwave.

The 20 year old dishwasher.

The new one that still washes dishes, so whatever.

The old range almost seems unsafe now compared to what we have.

Now, all the dangerous flames are imprisoned below the metal.

The new sink. I never got to take a picture of the old one, but it looked pretty much the same, just less shiny and no insta hot with it. The faucet is the same one from the old one. It works, so we kept it.

Things I Hate: 5

Hello and Welcome to the fifth installment of Things I hate. Before I get going, I'm going to warn you again that this will be my last post of this nature until the new quarter starts. This time on Things I hate, I will be going against something that will probably be affecting anyone travelling this holiday season: People who don't understand common-sense driving laws.

Lanes:
This is simple, the left lane means you want to go fast. At least 10 miles over the speed limit works. If someone is following you closely, get over so they can pass. If you like to drive slowly, get in the right hand lane. When the road is one lane on either side, pull off if you are going too slowly for the people behind you. If you have 15 cars following you, you're definately going too slow. If you drive a truck, you can pass other trucks ONLY if there are more than 2 lanes. Nothing is more annoying than going uphill and getting stuck behind one truck passing another truck. If you are being passed on the road, don't speed up. I don't understand why people do that? Do they want this to take longer? If the guy put in the effort to change lanes and go around you, that guy is going to go around you eventually. All you do when you speed up as someone passes you is you piss everyone waiting on him to pass you off because they have to wait for this crap to end so they can get on with their lives.

Speed Limits:
Always, ALWAYS go the speed limit. If you plan to go less than that, your car had better be breaking down or something. Cops usually don't mind if you go 5 over unless it's in a school zone or something, so there is no excuse to go less than the speed limit unless like you're pushing your car down the street (which should never be happening).

Directions:
As a man, I don't ask for directions ever. If you find yourself lost, for the love of God, DO NOT STOP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. People getting lost near my house always stop in the middle of the road. It's like, what the hell am I supposed to do? Wait while you drag your map out and check to see where you are? Screw that, you're getting the honk, then the pass, then the finger. I hear there's this cool new place for your kind, it's called the side of the road. Why don't you go get lost over there sometime?

Cell Phone Driving:
Personally, I find cellphone drivers tolerable (after all, I still do it despite it being illegal) except when they don't follow common sense rules of the road. If you are on your cell phone, you should always be in the right hand lane. I don't care how good of a driver you are, unless you are going fast enough to prevent me from wanting to pass you, you need to get into the right hand lane.

Cyclists:
Can we share the road? HELL NO. Get off my damn street and don't come back until you can ride at the speed limit. The only time you should be able to be on a bike in the street is if I don't have to change lanes when I pass you.

Pedesting (it's what I call what pedestrians do):
If you are crossing a busy intersection and your path obstructs a right hand turn, don't lazily walk and make them wait, get out of their way so that they can turn right and the people that didn't want to turn right can get out of the intersection and through the intersection.

Beggars:
Stop looking at me like that, please. You make me feel guilty.

Police Officers:
When you make an arrest, why do you feel the need to leave your car halfway in the lane? Seriously, it makes life difficult. I then have to go around you car by changing lanes, which means I have to wait for oncoming traffic to disperse. Just pull your car completely off the road like the person who just got arrested. They may not be able to control their speed, but they can at least not obstruct traffic.

I know it's short, but that's all I could come up with for now. I gotta get on to homeworkier things. Peace out.

Heyyy how's it goin?

I hope you were pleased with my attempt at being friendly in the title by adding 2 extra y's to the end of hey. Facebook tells me that cool people often do that. So I apologize for a lack of Things I hate, but I will post this week. The quarter ends this week and when I am off school, I am rarely angry at things, so I might not make a new post of that nature until I get back into school again. Anyway, it is time to reminisce about the past week.

Tuesday:
I went through most of my classes, then realized after Jazz Band got out that it was another one of those days when I realized that I wasn't going to learn anything new in math that day, so I chose not to show up. Apparently, I made a good choice because we didn't get much done.

Wednesday:
I only went to English because we had to leave at 11:00 since Kathryn had a half day. In English, those of us that showed up were rewarded with a piece of candy and a movie relating to our current book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?". He said that since we got candy, we had to stay an extra couple of minutes because the movie was about 52 minutes long. 25 minutes later, it ended. We all looked at the clock and the professor said, "Well I guess I was wrong, have a fun break everybody!" I got out early which was nice. I had extra time to load stuff into the car. We then spent 10 hours in heavy traffic. Dad actually drove part of the way because he was insistent that I let him, but I got to drive the long 100 mile dark, windy road at the end.

Sunriver (Thursday-Saturday)
I did a bike ride or walk each morning with dad and my uncles. We walked around a bunch of places and saw a lot of trees. Some good stories ensued as well. I got to see my second cousins (one is almost two and one is almost one). The littler one would look at me like a deer in the headlights at first, but once he figured out what my facial hair was all about, he warmed up to me. Every time I saw him, I would start imitating him, so eventually it became a thing to make him laugh. He liked trying to imitate me a lot as well. We also got to hear my other second cousin's catch phrase "What'd you do?" which he repeated quite often. Thanksgiving dinner went well. The football watching was good. I got in a really good game of Starcraft even though it was against comps. I was the only one to eliminate another player and because the other comps didn't kill each other for me, the whole game took 2 hours and 49 seconds. I got Apollo Justice beat and I started on Phoenix Wright 3. Other than that, just a lot of hanging around ensued.

Sunday:
We had to leave around 11:00 and traffic wasn't too bad getting to my grandma's house in Vancouver. We checked traffic at her house and the report was way wrong because it said there was no traffic, but there was a substantial amount, so we wound up going home via old highway 99 to 507 through Yelm and then to 512 or 52 (whatever it is) up to just about Seattle where the traffic had broken up. Despite all that, it still took over 5 hours to get home from Vancouver when it normally takes a little less than 3.

Today:
I got back into the schedule I normally follow and it was just an average day. I was planning on planning to come to the UW this week today (that was an odd sentence, I hope it made sense), but Steven wasn't on. I assume he probably went to the UW, so I'll have to see if he wanted to go later in the week as well. I assume the azns are ready to go any day, so I'll facebook Lucy or something or if she's reading she can leave a comment, but I'll probably get down there one way or another on Thursday or Friday.

Currently, I am accumulating drunkard title track points on Guild Wars while watching every Pure Pwnage episode hoping that they will update someday. I know it sounds depressing, but that's why I don't intend to keep it up much longer. Anyway, feel free to message me or something, peace out.

I left my hometown (not official, it's just where I hang out a lot) and decided I would come back when I got Legendary Cartographer. It's good to be back.

Chaos gloves to match my Chaos axe.

I think this guy was whorring out his guildies.