Apparently someone really has it in for us. After Dolly, Edouard, and Gustav failed to hit us, it looks like Ike is going to give us a more or less direct hit. Actually, considering the size of Ike, it doesn’t really matter if it’s a direct hit; no matter where it makes landfall at this point, we’ll still be affected by it. Wonderful.

Before anyone asks, we have no plans to evacuate. We’ve got five pets, and the cats and dogs hate each other. It doesn’t help that the dogs are big enough where there isn’t enough room for all of us in Mom’s van. The city’s pretty much given out a “shelter in place” order, so it’s probably best if we stay off the roads. We’ll probably end up spending tomorrow getting the house prepared; I know Dad was hoping for a large-scale test of the new water pumping system for the back yard we put in, and he may well end up getting it.

On a communications front, well… seeing as this site (and most of my email) is hosted at the house, I fully expect the site to be down for at least a couple of days due to power issues. Those of you with email hosted here need not worry overmuch; the backup mail server is in Minneapolis and will hold incoming email until we’re back online here. As far as communications with me go, well… once power goes out, the best way to reach me will probably be via SMS, as it uses far less power than voice calls do. I have a pair of cell phones with charged batteries I can use once the iPhone’s battery gives out. (Thank goodness the iPhone’s SIM card can be removed.) I’ll send text messages to certain people during the storm to let you all know how we’re holding up.

Ah, well. We’ll be getting out of work at noon today so we can prepare for the storm. Hopefully things will be all right. I’ll let you all know where things stand as they progress.

Kerri-Leigh linked to this blog post over on her LiveJournal. I did some checking and found the image is actually relatively old… relatively meaning it was reported on Kotaku and other sites nearly a year ago.

In a way, I’m not really surprised. In the time I’ve worked over at Mortal Kombat Online, I’ve heard plenty of stories about kids who started playing Mortal Kombat games when they were around four years old. Not that I would ever approve, mind… of course, I was 18 when Mortal Kombat first hit arcades. Still, Mortal Kombat (outside of most of the games, Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe excepted) has been aimed at a kid audience, with movies, costumes, a cartoon show, toys, etc. The Grand Theft Auto series has NEVER been aimed at a kid audience, and in its own way this horrifies me more, as Grand Theft Auto is more true-to-life than Mortal Kombat. (I’ve seen far more thugs out there on the streets than undead ninjas or thunder gods.)

I don’t know. All I can say is that I look at a picture like this and hope to God that this isn’t an indication of where our society is headed. Unfortunately, the cynic in me believes it is.

All right, I have to admit to amusement.

My friend Jesse (aka Dementia) goes to Dragon*Con every year, and is heavily into costuming. Every year, she enters in Dragon*Con’s Dawn look-alike contest. Don’t ask me who Dawn is; I’m more of a mainstream comics type person. Well, it appears that this year she got a pretty big sign that she may have been at it for too long.

Like I said, I had to laugh. I also got a kick out of the “CHUG OH GOD CHUG” one. :-) Maybe one of these years I’ll go out and see what it’s all about. We’ll see…

Well, so far it’s been a relatively calm and fun three-day weekend for me. About the main productive thing I did today was go to Spec’s after getting my hair cut, and picked some snacks and drinks for the party tonight. I picked up some Jose Cuervo strawberry margarita, a bottle of TGI Friday’s strawberry shortcake blender (which Louie introduced me to not too long ago), and a can of wasabi peas. :-) You see, Merrie had a party at her house tonight to celebrate her husband quitting his job, and a few of us came out. It was mainly me, Heather, Lissa, Sean, Jinny, Henry, Brian, and Becky. Mostly we sat around and drank, had snacks, and smoked. (Well, they smoked; Lissa and I didn’t.) All in all, it was a good time. At one point, Jinny broke out the camera and took a picture of most of us in a Godfather/Sopranos moment.

That’s Jonathan, Sean, Heather, and Henry, with Brian seated.

The funny thing is, I almost left with more than I started with. I brought most of the margarita back, not to mention most of the wasabi peas, and the strawberry shortcake blender was untouched. I might have my parents try that tomorrow. I also left with four bottles of Michelob Ultra so as to save room in Merrie’s and Jonathan’s fridge. Fortunately, I had plenty of room in mine.

As for the rest of this weekend, I really have nothing planned… though I admit I’m keeping an eye on Hurricane Gustav, and am not liking what I’m seeing. I’m figuring Houston may at the very least get a glancing blow fron the storm, but if its path keeps moving westward we may very well be in serious trouble. I should know by tomorrow afternoon whether or not I’ll need to make sure both laptops have fully charged batteries and have my spare cell phones charged. I’ve got at least two spare unlocked Motorola V180 phones I can pop my iPhone’s SIM card in if its battery fails. We can’t evacuate, as we have three dogs and two cats to look after. Not to mention I figure evacuation will be a nightmare given what happened when Rita came bearing down on the city.

Ah, well. We’ll see how the storm goes. Otherwise, I’ll just relax and enjoy the weekend, and hope the storm doesn’t decide to give us more than a very glancing blow.

All right, Misty just sent this link to me, and I found it amusing enough that I felt the need to share with everyone. I just hope we have as much fun when it’s our turn… :-)
Read more “The evolution of the wedding dance…”

I have to say it’s been something of an uneventful weekend.

About the only thing of real note I’ve done this weekend (other than play Team Fortress 2) was take the Beast (aka, my black 2008 Dodge Avenger) in to Spring Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge to have some work done. It was time for the car’s 21k mile service, and I had also decided to have its windows tinted. Houston summers tend to be pretty brutal, and while it’s kind of late in the year for the tinting to do much good, I figure it’ll be good for next year. In retrospect, I should have left the car there while they did the work, as I didn’t expect them to take four hours. I alternated between working on my laptop and taking a look at the Vipers and Challengers in the showroom. I have to say that while they look nice, I would not get either car. The Challenger is a bit more expensive than I’m willing to pay, and has crap gas mileage. The Viper has no cargo room, and, well… I can’t afford $100k on a car. :-)

Still, in the end, the Beast looks nicer. There’s just something about tinted windows on a black car that makes it look nicer. Also, admittedly, current model Dodges tend to look like mean cars. The Beast is no exception, and the tint only makes it look meaner. :-)

Otherwise, it’s been a pretty quiet weekend, all told. I watched a movie (Resident Evil: Extinction) this morning, but otherwise it’s been uneventful. This week should hopefully be quiet as well… but I don’t expect it to be. About the only good thing I’m looking forward to is a party at a friend’s house at the end of the week… which, coincidentally, will be part of a three day weekend. We’ll see how it goes. :-)

Well, as stated in the previous post, we were getting extremely worried about Gus. Mom and I were discussing him on Sunday, and came to the decision that unless we heard good news from the vet yesterday, we would go into worst case scenario.

Fortunately, we won’t have to go there. :-)

According to the vet, Gus has a benign tumor on his thyroid, which explains why he hasn’t been wanting to eat. Of the three options open to us right now, we’re going for the least invasive/expensive option just in case other things the vet noticed don’t make the whole point moot. The option we’re going for is daily medication. From there we’ll see how he takes to it and whether he improves any.

I’m thankful that we didn’t need to go into worst case scenario. Other than losing weight, he hasn’t shown any other signs of problems; he’s as playful and perky (and some would say annoying and pushing) as ever. At this point, we’ll just take it as it goes. I’m just glad things are really looking up for him.

Well, yesterday I weighed myself once again. I’m down to 221 pounds, which means that so far I’ve lost 37 pounds. It might have been a little bit more had I gotten a chance to exercise Thursday night. As it was, I was at work until 11 PM and didn’t even have a chance to eat dinner that night. Then again, my weight loss was helped by the fact that from Monday through Wednesday, all I would have for lunch was pho. At this rate, I doubt I’ll make my final goal (195 pounds) by the end of the year. That’s okay, though, because as long as I’m LOSING weight and not GAINING it (which I haven’t done since I started this diet/lifestyle change), I’m in good shape… no pun intended. We’ll see how things go over the next couple of months, but for right now I’m feeling good. :-)

What I’m NOT feeling so good about is my cat Gus. Over the past month or two he’s been losing weight dramatically. We’re not sure what’s wrong with him, as about the only obvious problem we can see is his weight loss; he’s as perky as ever and his coat is in great shape. Still, according to the vet, he’s gone from fifteen and a half pounds to eight and a half pounds, and his weight loss is pretty obvious. Dad has joked that because I’m Gus’s “special friend”, he’s decided to lose weight because I have too. It’s an amusing thought, but we’re still worried about him. According to the vet he’s dehydrated, so we’ve been having to give him an IV of water or saline (I forget which) every night. Let me tell you, that has NOT been fun. I took Dad’s place today in holding Gus down while Mom put the needle in, and while he was calmer with me than he was with Dad, he still made his displeasure WELL known. I also now have a bandage on my right hand, as he gouged me pretty badly with one of his back claws trying to get away. (He’s since forgiven me, though.)

Still, like I said, I’ve been doing well on my own weight loss… but I am worried about Gus. It doesn’t help that he’s an older cat and this could very well be an indicator of something far more serious. We won’t know until the lab tests come back, though. Here’s hoping everything goes well… both for me and for him.

A few years ago I had heard word that Joss Whedon was working on a Buffy the Vampire Slayer animated series. It was supposedly going to take place sometime around season 2 or season 3 of the original series, and all cast members except for Sarah Michelle Gellar were to come back to voice their characters. I had only seen character designs, but not any actual footage.

Well, as seen on Ain’t It Cool News, someone on YouTube managed to put up a short promo for the animated series. I don’t know how long it’ll remain up, so catch it while you can.