I've been waiting years for the video game "Spore" to come out, there's just a few more months until it hits stores. Today I saw that they released a creature creator for the game. The full version will be available Wednesday at about noon, in the meantime I downloaded the free trial and played around with it a bit.

Let me show you some of my creations ... ( if you dare )

So after moving in with my mom a few months ago, and her lease almost being up, I decided it was time to find a new place to live. Rather than continuing to rent I've decided to buy a place of my own.

I started talking with Jackie, who mi_wounded_soul, anarie111, and imgodsfavorite all used to get their houses. I let her know my budget, where I wanted to live, and what I wanted in a home. Today we went around to several houses and I've narrowed my decision down to two. One house and one condo/townhouse.
( Click here for the face off! )

So I'm in Hawaii, on the island of Kauai. My dad and I have been planning for about a year and a half to go to Europe. But with his current health problems we decided it would be best if we didn't. He doesn't really have enough strength to do a hiking vacation and staying in hostels. And he gets sick usually once a week, not really ideal for being on a tour bus. So we decided to go to Hawaii instead.

I flew in last Sunday. My dad and I are staying with some friends, Dyana and her daughter Malea. It's been a pretty cheap vacation considering I haven't had to pay for hotel, and most of my meals have been provided to me. Because of Dyana's work schedule and Malea's school schedule we've been around the house a lot, but we've still been able to get out and see the island.

I'll probably be sticking to just Kauai, while I'd like to go to some of the other islands it's a bit cost and time prohibitive. That and I don't mind just hanging around here enjoying the beaches and weather.

I've got a bunch of pictures up you can view here. I'm still working on getting all the pictures labeled properly, so bear with me. :-p

( Cut for sadness )

About 3 years ago I bought my first car. It was a 2004 Honda Civic. I liked it. Last week I got a call from the dealership where I bought it, they asked if I was considering getting a new car. I said I wasn't as mine was less than 3 years old. They asked me to come in and check it out, I figured why not so I went in.

I test drove the car, it's definately an improvement on what I had. It's very "futuristic" looking and all the displays inside are digital.

After haggling with them for a while, I was able to get the same payments on the new car that I had on my old car, which was a pretty sweet deal.

So I drove out of the dealership on Tuesday, happy as can be with my new car.

Then on Thursday, as I was driving around for some things for work, someone T-boned me.

( Read more... )

I have returned home from a roadtrip with lotjeisgraaf. I flew into Charlotte on Saturday morning, we got a rental and headed West. We stayed on I-40 for most of it (with a minor detour to Mississippi). We got back Monday night. It was very fun. :-D Lotje drove for most of it, so I was able to sleep. :-p

We took video of the trip, if you want to watch it (it's about half an hour) you can download it here. It's about 150MB, so I wouldn't suggest downloading it unless you have cable or DSL.

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So my last entry was 8 months ago, and my niece Destiny had just been born.

Yesterday I finally met her.



( Read more... )

I'm an uncle now :-D

I think I'll go for the "creepy Uncle" routine.

I just saw a video for what looks to be the greatest game ever created. Spore.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8372603330420559198&q=spore

It's 35 minutes long, but well worth it, you basically start out as a single cell organism and then eventually evolve into more complex organisms that you create yourself. It simply looks astounding. I've never been a big fan of The Sims, but I definately think I'd play this game. Too bad it doesn't come out till the end of the year.

Got some new glasses today.

( Picture under the cut )

Life is going pretty well, I've been shuffling back and forth between Yuma and Phoenix and will probably continue to do so until next month. I'll be an uncle in the next few weeks (my sister is having a daughter). I'm almost done with the first class I was taking at South Mountain Community College, only 3 more to go.

Oh, and I'm having far too much fun with "Google Suggest".

It's strange how you can see something every day, and not really notice anything pecular about it. It's always been there, there's nothing odd or funny about it. It's just there.

Today I looked at a small calendar, I read the top of it and couldn't help myself. How had I missed it? How had I gone all these years without realizing it? Why was this moment chosen as a moment of epiphany. I shall never now. But I do know I'll never be able to look at a calendar again without smiling.

( Read more... )

So I'm back from the Carolinas. Training went pretty well, hopefully I can retain most of the stuff I was told.

Friday was a half day, so after the class finished I drove back up to North Carolina to hang out with lotjeisgraaf a bit more. While the whole week had been pretty decent, it started to rain as I left Greenville. By the time I got to lotje's, it was a full down pour. We drove around a bit, she showed me where she was currently working and a nearby waterfall.

( Picture Break 1 )

I woke up the next morning and looked out the window from my bed and saw the sun out, I thought it was going to be a decent day. I got out of bed and started checking things online (cause, you know, that's always first priority in the morning) and lotje came out and told me it had snowed. I looked outside and sure enough, there it was. See, that's how you know when you're too far gone. When you can wake up, go to the bathroom and sit down on the couch and not even once look outside.

( Picture Break 2 )

We hung out some more on Saturday and Sunday, but because the wind was so strong we couldn't go up into the mountains. I flew back on Sunday, pretty uneventful.

Today I started school again. I'm taking some Cisco classes at a community college. We were in one of the labs and the teacher was showing us the equipment we would be using when the whole school was plummeted into darkness. Apparently a transformer blew up. So we got to go home a bit early. I may be going down to Yuma a lot in the next month in a half. One of the businesses that we own down there is moving into a new building, so I'll have to help with setting up the new network and all that fun geeky stuff. Hopefully it won't conflict with any of my schooling.

Saturday morning I got on a plane and flew to Greenville, South Carolina for training for my job. It was pretty much an all day thing. I left Phoenix at 9:45AM and arrived at 6:30PM. Once I got there I drove up to North Carolina to hang out with lotjeisgraaf. My classes don't start until Monday so I hung out with her Saturday night and Sunday.

( Some peek chores )

Right now I'm laying on the floor of my hotel room because the only Internet cable I brought with me is a foot long and the plug for the Internet is next to the phone port. No wireless either.

So, for the third time, I've had a quote added to Bash.org

Linky

<Yaksha> I asked my brother what he wanted for Christmas.
<Yaksha> He said he wanted cold hard cash.
<Yaksha> So that's exactly what I gave him.
<Yaksha> I got 20 $1 bills, soaked them in water and put them in the freezer.
<Yaksha> When he got it, it was just a block of green ice that took a day to thaw.

So for Christmas, my mom got me an Amazon gift card. I got some books with it. I was also "selected" to get a free three month membership of Amazon Prime, which means I get free two day shipping.

Someone remind me in March to cancel that, mm'kay?

Anyway, I found some great books to get, including:

The Zombie Survival Guide
How To Survive A Robot Uprising
Real Ultimate Power: The Official Ninja Book

I'm pretty much prepared for anything.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas :)

I wasn't able to go back to Washington, lack of money and the inability to take time off of work were the contributing factors.

Saturday was pretty uneventful, Starlyn had to work both Saturday and Sunday.

On Sunday, Josh and Anastasia came and picked me up and we went to his families place for Christmas. I also finished editing an episode for the Sponsors vs Freeloaders web series I do. My presents from my mom arrived, I got a $50 Amazon gift card, a water powered clock, a USB lava lamp and a remote control that can turn off any TV.

On Monday I went with Starlyn and Esther down to Coolidge to visit Starlyn's folks. Starlyn got me the movies Pink Flamingos and Kung Fu Hustle. We watched Kung Fu Hustle which was very entertaining. Esther and Starlyn also found Jolt at Fry's Electronics. They gave me one as we were driving down to Coolidge. At one point I reached down to grab the Jolt out of the cupholder and saw it was missing. I was looking around trying to figure out where I had put it when I looked over at Esther, who was in the passenger seat, and said, "Are you drinking my Jolt?" She looked at her bottle, looked at me, there was a few moments of silence followed by many moments of laughter. I think Esther likes Jolt a little too much.

( Some picture )

After getting back into town we all went and saw The Producers which was hilarious. The whole theatre was rolling with laughter.

I had a little too much fun before and after the movie with the TVs in the concession area, which I kept turning on and off with the remote control I mentioned above.

Yesterday, I was at a doctor's house, fixing up his computer as he will be going on call soon. I had a hard time finding the place, I wasn't sure if I had the right house or not so I drove into the driveway to get a better look at the numbers on the house. It was it. So I parked and went inside. After a while of working, the doctor came into his office and told me his wife had backed into my car while coming out of the garage.

It wasn't like I was right up against the garage door or anything, I was a good 15 to 20 feet back. The damage wasn't too bad, the bumper had a small chunk taken out of it. He told me a place to go to get an estimate, that way he wouldn't have to go through his insurance company. I told him the place gave me an estimate at $1500. He called the insurance company.

Now I'm just waiting to hear back from them to see where to take my car to get it fixed. I wonder if there's any way I can claim a neck injury or pain and suffering from this.

Ahh well, the bumper had a few scratches on it already from when I gave a pole a slight love tap :-D

Dear Santa... Dear Santa, This year I've been busy! In June I set nilmandra's puppy on fire (-66 points). Last Tuesday I didn't flush (-1 points). Last Thursday I had a shoot-out with rival gang lords on the 5 near LA (-76 points). Last Saturday I ruled Duluth, Minnesota as a cruel and heartless dictator (-700 points). In May imgodsfavorite and I robbed a bank (-50 points). Overall, I've been naughty (-893 points). For Christmas I deserve a lump of coal! Sincerely, yaksha42

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I swear I didn't mess with it at all.

Tomorrow I drive with my boss to Yuma. For those who don't know, Yuma is about a 2 1/2 to 3 hour drive from Phoenix. The company I work for has some clients down there, and we have to go down there to fix any problems that come up.

And what's the problem that came up that warrants us driving down to Yuma? There's a monitor that needs to be replaced. That's it.

So, six hours of driving, 5 minutes of work. This should be interesting.

Now, in all fairness to the people down in Yuma, they don't have the type of monitor that they need. The only one available is at the office in Phoenix, so we have to drive it down. It's a special monitor that radiologists use to view MRI scans, CT scans, X-Rays, etc. on the computer. Normal monitors aren't high enough quality to be used for diagnostic purposes.

You know, when they first announced a "Halo" movie (based on my favorite video game) last summer, I had my doubts. I figured it would be some crappy video game to movie remake that always suck.

Those doubts are now gone.

Peter Jackson, yes, THE Peter Jackson, has just been signed on as the Executive Producer. And coming with him in the package is WETA.

This movie is going to fucking rock.