I can haz blinds [s]

Impressed: My blinds came in yesterday - a pretty quick turnaround from whenever it was that I ordered them.

Impressed: But there was no time, as James and I were off to Lei Lounge for celebrations. Word is they do a good happy hour every Tuesday.

Disappointed: I ordered a Singapore Sling because, you know, the late Raoul Duke would drink them. But there's two things that can befoul a drink in my eyes: excess sugar or excess gin. This had both.

Impressed: We watched the cgi Ninja Turtles movie after Lei. It provided the nostalgia and familiar references I was expecting, but offered a few unexpected highlights. The lack of a clearcut antagonist was refreshing. Raph's alter ego is an enjoyable homage the another great comic/movie. And most surprising was the outcome of the Raph-Leo spar, being a departure from the highly formulaic plotlines of the franchise.

Impressed:





Horizontals are all there.

Time lapse blogography [s]

So the ol' 1.6 Athlon setup finally choked. Hard to say what it was, I've failed to diagnose the problem hardware having independently swapped everything out. I'll revisit when I'm setting the box up as a terminal in the garage.

The new stuff:

• ASUS M3N78 Pro mobo. $100. Supports all the nice things, particularly sli and 1066 ram.
  
• AMD Phenom X3 2.3. $110. Three core, their second tier.
  
• PNY GeForce 9800GT. $160. Listed for a whole lot more. The gig of video memory should help with photo editing.
  

Of course, Fry's gave me the X3 2.1 and I didn't realize it until they'd closed. I had to stop by the following day and recover the 200,000,000 hz they owed me.

The near-term purchases include a sata disk, another two cheap gigs of ram, and maybe a new display.

And, well, I'm borrowing Curt's monitor, the power supply is sitting on the case, and there are boards sprawled about my desk area. But at least everything is functional.

The hiatus is explained, now rewind.



Thanksgiving was good. The new house accommodates well.



I snagged Madden '09 for entertainment purposes. My dad picked it right up and Jon wouldn't be separated from the game, save for by real football. There's not much to say about it - being an EA franchise - except it's generally enjoyable, graphically unimpressive, and Cris Collinsworth follows Madden's act very closely.



Taboo was a riot, particularly the last round where Mom, Connie, and I netted several points from Mark, Jon, and Erik.





The hallway floor went in fine. 'How did you overcome the itis?', you might ask. Well I peered in the fridge and made a glorious connection:

1. Red Bull
2. Orange juice

Iced and stirred together, pure genius. It's like Sunny D with stimulants.



The stairs are the only remaing hardwood to be done. You've come a long way, baby. The constructon tiredom led to my second genius (derived re-)invention: post-Thanksgiving pizza.

1. A fresh pizza from Round Table: the canvas.
   
2. Leftover turkey piled on top.
   
3. Mashed potatoes piled on top.
   

Delightful.

Thanksgiving weekend also saw d'Chris's d'Brickapult claw its way from the grave to a winning record and fourth seed in the Medieval Gridiron playoffs. Similarly, Santos surmounted the impossible and overcame a large point differential to knock James out of contention. It's been a white knuckle end to a unimpressive season.

This weekend I'm up against Potats' team, which is predicted to beat mine by 25 points even after his tight end netted zero on Thursday.

Sunday also featured the long-awaited return to the water. It was pretty good-sized, but rides were characterized by straight drop-bottom turn-close, so not exactly elegant. It's phenomenal how life on land maintains absolutely zero of the muscles required for paddling.

A few quotables:

• Schooled three little college guys. They seemed not happy to lose to a girl.
  
• Go Raiders! ... We're horrible. Marty! Marty! Marty!
• I heard you put Rob and Dave against the glass.
• I am ridiculously addicted to yr blog. Will you please update it more often?

Epilogue:
I'm a firm believer in giving the people what they want, so I'll break you off one more piece of culinary revelation.

1. Sirloin burger with ample Dorchestershire sauce. You probably don't have that, so you can substitute Worchestershire sauce instead.
2. Leftover turkey.
3. Fried onions.
4. Sourdough.
   

Getting there [s]

The 'rents came down this weekend. Mom bought me the taxadermed animal I wanted so badly.



Cement board, tile saw, sealer...



The media room has a long way to go. But Justin's gaming chair has found a good home.



The chandelier aglow.



Upstairs bathroom preparations. Copper green on the studs, plywood on the studs, roofing felt on the plywood, cement board on the felt, tile on the cement board.



For this one I'm going with some 16x24 travertine pieces. The lighter color is key for not making the tub look freakishly out of place.