Here We Go Again

A couple of days ago I noticed that my kids started to have runny noses again. Then, yesterday, their breathing sounded all wet and congested. Today they don't sound much worse, but boy are they grumpy. Neither of them want to eat and Amelia is super clingy. Man, I hate it when they're sick. They're probably uncomfortable and feeling lousy but I really hate when they're sick because I'm a selfish bastard and it's really difficult for me to handle them. Amelia just wants to be carried all the time and Lucas eventually starts to feel left out. Whenever I hear people with just one kid complaining about how their one child is so hard to look after when s/he is sick, I want to punch them.

You Know More Than You Know

I was reading this thing about some guy that gave a speech at some commencement ceremony somewhere (that's a pretty detailed line, I know) and rather than try to impart some of his wisdom on the new grads, he instead asked them to write down their response to the question "What do my classmates and I need to hear on graduation day?"  It appeared as though the final lesson they learned was that they were, in fact, quite a bright bunch a people.  Some of the responses:

• Be wise enough not to be reckless, but brave enough to take great risks.
• It's okay to fail - learn from it and you will succeed.
  
• Wash your hands... religiously.
  

Hmm, not bad.

Live in the Now

Now that the twins are starting to talk a bit, I have to be extra careful with the words I use.  So far they haven't repeated anything bad but Lucas is getting very good at repeating words.  His talking has exploded in the past few weeks.  He's learning words like crazy and is starting to put them together creatively.  Amelia still babbles a lot but she says it like you're supposed to understand her.  She doesn't like to repeat stuff but you can tell she's just soaking it in, ready to burst out in full sentences.  She did this when she was an infant too.  She would just watch everything and then one day she started to roll and crawl and walk, leaving Lucas in the dust.  so even though Lucas may be using words more now, I expect Amelia to pick it up quick.  I've always looked forward to the day they could talk but now I miss the days when they were still crawling around (kinda).  Maybe I should stop looking forward to what will come and appreciate what is here.

Don't You Hate...

when you just finish putting lotion on your super-dry hands and then you go to the bathroom and when you wash your hands all the lotion is gone?

Movie Review

Star Trek directed by JJ Abrams

Holy shit this was good. I'm not going to ruin it for you or anything so I'll just say this: Watch This Movie.

Nerd News Vol. 1, Issue 1

I just heard that Starcraft II will be released on Halloween this year.  That is the best damn news I've heard this year.  I don't think my Windows PC will be able to handle it so that leaves me with either installing Windows on my iMac or buying the Mac version of the game.  Mac versions of games have historically sucked but maybe they're better now.  But then will I only be able to play online with other Mac players?  Or do will I be able to play with the rest of the world?  I don't know.

Speaking of installing Windows on my iMac, there's a new version of Windows coming out this year.  In case you don't follow the Nerd News, the new version is called Windows 7.  Creative title but apparently this version is much better than Vista.  See?  Giving your OS a fancy name doesn't stop it from sucking.  Maybe a boring name makes for a better OS.  Millenium Edition sucked but XP was good.  Anyway, I'm thinking that this new version is the one I'll install on my iMac.  Hopefully it doesn't fuck up my beautiful computer.

Inconceivable!

So today we were talking about The Princess Bride with Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, and Robin Wright Penn.  There were a few people that had never seen it and I think those people a fucking nuts.  Not in a bad way, mind you, they are just crazy to have not seen this movie or to have spent their time searching out a movie such as this even though they didn't know it existed.  This movie is brilliant.  Comedy, action, love, suspense... the only thing it's missing is the naked women.  I'll let that one go for this movie because it's that great.  All the characters are brilliant: The Spaniard, The Sicilian, The Giant, and of course The Dread Pirate Roberts, AKA Wesley. Good shit, people.  Good shit.

"Coconuts are tropical and this is a temperate zone."

I was on vacation all of last week.  I got so much done!  I cleaned half the garage (believe me, half is a pretty damn big job), painted a closet (it's a big closet), changed a light fixture (I don't even know how to do that!), and buried all my A/V cables in the wall/crawlspace.  Plus I took my car to get aircared (passed with flying colours, thank you very much), played video games, watched some DVD's, and cleaned up the garbage from the back patio.  Okay, okay, the video games and watching DVD's aren't really productive, but when you don't get to play except late at night when you're already tired and you never get to watch a movie from beginning to end uninterrupted, it's a big deal.

After having this time off, I was so ready to go back to work.  Don't get me wrong, I love being off work.  I love it so much I wish I could do it every day.  I wish I could do it every day and then marry it.  I wish I could do it every day, marry it, and then have kids with it so the not-going-to-work think can be passed on to my next generation.  Anyway, that didn't make sense at all, but the point is that I love not having to work.  But, since I do have a job and I'm kinda obligated to do some work at that job, and I actually like my job (that totally contradicts my whole I-love-not-going-to-work thing), I go every day and do a little bit of stuff here and there.  I've actually got a lot of stuff to do, but I've been avoiding it and saving it up for a day when I really don't have time to do it so I can be so freakin busy I'll have to stop and blog about it at work.  I'm not really making much sense here, am I?  I'm like a fricken monty python sketch right now.

Sleep is for the Weak

I'm exhausted.  I always say this but I think it's finally really catching up to me.  I'm so tired that I can't sleep anymore.  I lay in bed until close to midnight and wake up at 5:30 or 6am.  Even if I go to bed a bit earlier, I just wake up and then I can't fall back asleep.  Maybe I'm just going through some adjustment period or something.

I Pity the Fool

I don't know about you, but I think Mr. T is one of the greatest entertainers in the history of movies and TV. Seriously, have you seen his Clubber Lang in Rocky III? Or B.A. Baracus in the A-Team? OMG, this guy is fuckin awesome. Who will ever forget his name? "First name: Mister, second name: period, last name: T." He rocked the gold bling before any of those wannabe rappers and he is the real OG. Anyone that can be a bodyguard for Mohammed Ali, Joe Frazier, and Leon Spinks is one bad ass. Although his characters would tend to appear very stupid with short lines like, "I pity the fool!", Mr. T is a very intelligent person with great charisma. He's got this reality (reali-T) show is called "I Pity the Fool" where he goes around and motivates people. It's not a show that will make you feel sorry for the guests, there's no "boo-hoo-my-life-sucks" people on his show. Mr. T will tell you your life sucks because you're a fool.

Some more Mr. T classics:

Mr. T Snickers commercial "Get some nuts!"

Mr. T World of Warcraft commercial "I'm a night elf mohawk."

Mr. T: the "T" in I.T.

Rules for Fools: Mr. T on Successful Employment

One

Yesterday was my first anniversary. Exactly a year ago we got married in a little church in Surrey and had a grand celebration in a casino. Celebrating in a casino isn't exactly as bad as it sounds, it's kinda like getting married in Las Vegas except without Elvis. The resort (not just a casino) staff were great and were very nice to us from our first meeting with the event coordinator right up to the last drink from the best damn bartender (congratulations on your engagement btw - again, knowing the bartender isn't as bad as it sounds, he's a friend). Anyway, you'd think that after living together for a few years getting married wouldn't be such a big deal. Well it is. It makes all the difference in the world. Don't know why, it just does and you'll know it when it happens to you. Anyway, I would like to take this opportunity (is it really an "opportunity" if I can blog about it any time I damn well please?) to say Happy Anniversary to my beautiful wife and here's to another 40 years to come (I don't really expect to live past 75)! I love you, Celia.

All This Time I Thought I Was Alone

A while back, probably at least a couple years ago, I wrote about googling yourself.  I did it once and found out there was some guy with the same name as me in Washington.  He was a professor of some writing class and sounded pretty smart.  Anyway, I thought "cool" and pretty much left it at that.  Recently, while surfing through facebook I found a group called Fans of Oliver de la Paz.  Seriously, I had to join this group.  So I did, read some of the stuff in the group and thought "cool" and pretty much left it at that.  Today, I get a message and a friend request that says "since we have the same name, we HAVE to be friends!"  That's totally cool with me so I accept and as it turns out, it's that professor dude from Washington.  I'm in his fan club group and I have to admit, I've never really read his stuff.  Anyway, just to make the story more interesting, I'm going through his pictures and find out that he has a 1-year old son named Lucas.  WTF??!  Weird, huh?  Finally, I just found out there's another Oliver De La Paz in California.  I sent a friend request to him because I think we might start a facebook group just for people with our name.  All three of us can be in it. 

Expert

Today we were pretty busy.  We helped one of the women in our group with her plans for a kitchen renovation.  We totally avoided work and looked at different kitchen designs hoping to find one that she likes.  She has an idea in her head but it sounds pretty fricken expensive so we were suggesting ways to save money.  At the same time, however, we were putting new ideas into her head that would just cost a million dollars more than her budget.  Granite sinks, radiant heat in a tile floor, double built in ovens and a built in microwave.  Fun stuff, huh?  Ever since we renovated our kitchen, I think I'm just an expert on all things kitchen-y.  It's like during the Olympics when you watch enough synchronized diving that you think you could be a judge.  Anyway, I have an early meeting tomorrow so I can't spend the night writing for you.  Gotta run.  No, don't get up, I'll just let myself out.  See you later.

Damn Cute

We were at my sister-in-law's house today and Amelia was calling to the dogs "Hi dog!"  She's so fricken cute.

Reliving my Youth

If you've never heard of it, there's this game called Quake. It came out in the mid-90's and was very popular. Then Quake 2 came out and was even more popular. I used to play it a lot and was pretty damn good at it. In fact, on the servers I played on frequently, I was very well known and, dare I say it, feared. I was in a couple of clans and... Well you get the idea - I was a Q2 freak. If you ever want to play, I bet I could still kick your ass.

Anyhoo, a little while later, Quake 3 came out and then a few years after that Quake 4. With those last two iterations, I never was able to pick up the old rail gun and frag the world like I could in Q2. Maybe the gameplay was different, maybe the weapons changed, maybe the gamespeed changed, or maybe I just plain sucked. Whatever it was, I don't really care but recently I've started something that makes me wish I was better at Q3: Quake Live. Its basically Quake 3 but played right out of your browser. No game to buy, nothing more than a plug-in to download and install, and most importantly, no lag to be found. I play it on a 7 year old computer and it runs at 120+ fps. I open my browser and I'm playing the game less than 1 minute later. Seriously, it actually runs just as well if not better than my real copy of Q3. If any of this didn't come across as supergeeky or if it did but you are in the least bit interested in Quake, you have to try QuakeLive. It is totally worth the hours of unproductive effort. Now if only I could install the plug-in on my computer at work...

My Way

At work, I've somehow become the non-official official orientation guy for when new people start.  Not such a big deal cuz I kinda enjoy it anyway.  Since last year, I've had 4 new people (aka, my bitches - not the derogatory annoying girl kinda bitch, but more the prison bitch) that I've had to train.  So far, I'm quite proud that they all do things my way and that they think of me as the guy that knows everything.  Really though, when they all find out that I actually don't know much, I'm in trouble and they'll be calling me their bitch.  But at least they'll all still be doing things my way.

Vampires Suck

So my co-worker tells me about this show on TV (HBO) about vampires and how it is really kinda racy and she has to turn the volume down when she's watching it because it gets a little porn-ish.  Then she tells me that Anna Paquin is in it.  Naked.  And then she tells me to PVR the damn thing so I can watch it.  So for a while I do that and the storyline seems okay and Anna Paquin seems pretty aight (naked) and then there's the porn-ish parts which really aren't all that porn-ish, they're more just rated R kinda stuff.  Anyway, I got bored of the show and deleted all of them off my PVR.  So now my co-worker is getting other people at work to read the books but I gotta say this: it's kinda boring.  If she ever reads this, she'll probably kill me.

MiL On the Way

In about 2 weeks, my mother-in-law is coming. She usually stays with us because she wants to be with the twins and will usually take a short side trip to San Francisco. Most people moan and groan and roll their eyes when they hear their mother-in-law is coming to visit, but I actually really enjoy it. Not only does she come and help (a lot) with the kids, but she also takes care of Celia and I. When the kids were still in the hospital, sometimes we wouldn't come home until 10 or 11pm and when walked in the door, mom2 would have some hot food waiting for us. There is nothing better than food ready for you when you walk in the door. Maybe a cold beer but that's just being greedy. Anyway, I never expect her to cook for us or anything, but she does and I love it. The other bonus is that she often takes my side when Celia and I disagree. :)

Pet Peeve

One of my pet peeves is when people do the 3period thing (eg, "...")  but go overboard and put, like, 20 periods.  for example:

"hey........... haven't talked to you in a while........... we should get together!"

I'm Back

It's been a while.  Sorry to all my faithful readers if I've left you hanging.  Let me give you a quick recap of the past month:

Twins' birthday - they turned 2 earlier this month.  We didn't do anything wild or crazy, just a little dinner with the family, godparents, and the neighbour.  As it turns out, the neighbour's kid goes to the same daycare as our kids.

Night shifts - I did a whole week of night shifts for some implementation we had out in Abbotsford.  It wasn't so bad except I was bored out of my mind.  As it turns out, the twins don't sleep through the night and Celia had a rough week.

Parents - my parents finally moved back into their own house.  There are a few things the contractors did a crappy job on.  If I ever find out their name, I'll let you know so you can never ever hire them for anything ever.  Stupid shit too like not lining up the tiles in the backsplash or not laying the floor tiles flat.  Seriously, that's stupid shit.

Work - there's a big shake-up at work.  Not a bad one, but everyone is working on something different.  Well, not everyone, but teams were switched around and new teams were formed.  I don't know why people always get mad at me for finding stuff out.  I mean, if it really was a big secret, why are they telling me?  Then I get in trouble for talking about it.  Personally, I think being able to find out everything that's going on, even the stuff that isn't officially going on (you know what I mean), is a skill and a good skill to have.  Don't hate me for having mad skillz.

Well that's about it.  What's going to be happening in the next few weeks?  I don't know.  I'm seriously starting to think about moving again.  Maybe we'll move in with my parents and save a bajillion dollars.  Man, that's a great idea.  Also, I've decided that the next opportunity that comes my way, I'm taking.  I probably should have taken the last one but I don't think that one was the one for me.  But the next one is mine.  Now that I say that, there probably won't be another one for a long time.  I suck.