Well, right now I’m at Houston Hobby Airport, waiting to board a flight to Jackson, MS. I’m going to be spending the weekend visitng Misty, which should be pretty fun. What hasn’t been fun, though, is dealing with Hobby Airport. I’m flying Southwest instead of Continental because the fare price was a bit better. The drive to the airport wasn’t too bad either, considering I’m used to the same drive when driving to work.

What gets me about Hobby are a couple of things. First, the economy lot is a lot smaller and more cramped compared to Bush Intercontinental’s economy lot. What annoyed me more, however, was the sheer crowd going through security. I had never seen anything near as bad at Intercontinental, and one of its terminals is as big as Hobby’s single terminal. Ah, well. I suppose next time I’ll stick with Continental.

As for what I have planned for this weekend, well… we’ll probably see The Dark Knight and The X-Files, but other than it, it’ll mostly be just us spending time with one another.

I’ll probably be off the net for the most part this weekend, too, unless work needs help with something. So, if anyone needs me, I hope they have my cell phone number or work email address. :-) Otherwise, it can wait until I get back. Ah, well.

In any event, I’m just going to put my phone away and relax a little before boarding… fun fun. :-)

The “war” to which I refer to in the title is, of course, the conflict between my cats and dogs. For those recently joining in, the house is separated into the upstairs and downstairs. It didn’t always use to be this way, but when we got Star (who is now the oldest of our dogs), we didn’t realize she wasn’t at all cat-friendly. So, now, the dogs rule the downstairs and the cats occupy the upstairs. A set of children’s gates separate the upstairs and downstairs. For the most part the dogs stay in the kitchen, except if we’re spending time with them downstairs. So, there are gates at the bottom of the stairs and at the entrances to the kitchen.

Every so often, Gus (one of the two cats) would come to the bottom of the stairs and start making his presence known if he wanted to be fed. Star would hear him, go over to the kitchen gate, jump up, and lean over to see if she could see him. If she happened to get a glimpse of him, she would go berzerk. If you’re wondering what that scene would typically look like, it looks like this.

Well, recently Gus has started to realize that Star would go berzerk if he speaks out and makes his presence known… and that she would be the one shouted at, not him. So, he’s started coming downstairs and provoking her as much as possible. It’s not the first time he’s found a way to provoke them; he’s also been known to come downstairs and stand in front of the gate while they sleep, wait for one to notice him, and then slink away when they start going nuts. However, this time, he’s availing himself of this opportunity as much as possible.

Unfortunately, this time, it’s backfiring on him. Three times already either me or my Dad have had enough and carried him upstairs (while he protests) and shut him in my parents’ bedroom. Hopefully soon he’ll realize that if he provokes the dogs like that, he’ll get shut in for a while. Then maybe we’ll get some peace and quiet.

I’m not counting on it, though.

All right, so San Diego Comic-Con is over and done with. I didn’t get to go this year… but then, I haven’t really gone ANY year. This would have been the year for me to go, simply because of the fact that Midway was previewing Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe there. Ah, well. I am not here to discuss that, though, as my friend Justin has already done so over at Mortal Kombat Online. Instead, I want to speak quickly about another couple of announcements I found pretty interesting.

As a lot of people know, several months ago NBC aired a TV-movie/backdoor pilot which was a continuation of Knight Rider. It admittedly did not go over too well. Well, NBC’s gone ahead with a full series, except this time it seems like they listened to the complaints about the TV movie and took them to heart. Apparently most of the people from the TV movie are returning (including Val Kilmer as KITT), but the show has a new showrunner… namely, the guy who was responsible for The Fast and the Furious and Las Vegas. It looks better than the TV movie did. Only time will tell if it’s actually any good, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt for now.

The other announcement was much more of a “holy shit” type announcement. There had been rumours of a theatrical sequel to Tron for a while now. But then, they had only been rumours; the closest we’d seen was a video game called Tron 2.0 which had starred Bruce Boxleitner, who had played Alan and Tron in the original film. Well, at Comic-Con, Disney released a couple of minutes of footage which actually served as a teaser for the sequel, which is apparently going to be called Tr2n. What surprised me was the presence of Jeff Bridges, who played Kevin Flynn in the first film. The video here is a cleaned up version of one recorded from the Comic-Con presentation.

TR2N cleaned up 001
by genchang2112

If you’re wondering who the yellow warrior is, I’ve heard it said that it’s Clu, Flynn’s program from the first movie. Yes, that is the younger Bridges appearance that he has.

All in all, I have to admit I’m looking forward to both of these. We’ll end up seeing how good (or bad) either is, but either way they should be interesting…

Well, I can’t say it’s not been a semi-uneventful week.

It was my parents’ 40th anniversary this week. To celebrate, the folks went to Shreveport, LA in order to do some gambling. I COULD have tagged along without using any vacation time by working at our Shreveport facility during the day, but I decided to let them have their fun and stay home taking care of the cats. The dogs were boarded because with one person looking after them they would have been too much to handle.

Anyway, they left Sunday, and were due to come back Wednesday. On Monday, I called Dad to relay his email to him (as he didn’t take his laptop), and they informed me they were coming back a day early. I was amused but unsurprised; I figured they would get bored up there, as there’s less to do there than there is in Vegas. When they got back, we ate at Texas Roadhouse for dinner, and they told me that they had indeed gotten bored, as there wasn’t anything much to do outside of the casino and they had been spoiled by Vegas. I understood, but then I’m not quite like my parents. When they go to casinos, they only play slots. The first couple of times I went to Vegas I played slots… and quickly grew bored of them. I moved on to blackjack, and nowadays you’re much more likely to find me in the poker room than anywhere else in a casino.

We didn’t get the dogs out of boarding until today, which gave Gus (one of our two cats) time to rediscover his old habits when hanging around downstairs. What I had forgotten was how pushy he could be in the morning when you’re trying to eat breakfast, because he wants to get to the milk in your bowl. I’d end up spending as much time (if not more) keeping him away from my cereal than actually eating it. That was one thing I won’t miss now that the dogs have returned and reasserted their dominion over the ground floor of the house. :-)

The only thing of real note that happened this week was that Dolly gave us a VERY glancing blow. I had a few people ask if I was okay because of the storm. The storm actually made landfall 400 miles or so away; all we got was rain due to the extreme outer bands of the storm. We actually got more rain today than yesterday, leading to a very wet and humid day. Of course, I weathered it with no problems (no pun intended), but not everyone else did. This DHL driver making a delivery to the facility I was at today certainly didn’t…

Ah, well. In any event, it’s probably going to be an uneventful weekend, other than possibly meeting George to create a character for the Dungeons & Dragons campaign he’s doing with Chris, Preston, and Tiffany. I never got into D&D in the old days, but after years of playing EverQuest I think I’m ready to give it a try again and see what happens. Then it’ll be a short work week, as I go to visit Misty on Friday.

Hopefully the next week will speed by. :-)

As I’ve stated before here, Louie, Dave, and I have taken to playing Rock Band whenever we’re at Louie’s place. I usually end up on vocals, Louie plays guitar, and Dave takes drums. In fact, Louie and I end up needing to rescue Dave whenever he falls apart during a song. :-) Well, Dave should be heartened by the following clip of three people playing Rock Band and trying to perform the song “Tom Sawyer”, which was originally by Rush.

Why should he feel heartened, you may ask? Well, maybe it’s because the three people who end up failing miserably at playing “Tom Sawyer” are, in fact, Rush themselves… :-)

It’s pretty well known amongst my friends that I HATE being sent forwarded chain mail, especially the kind that’s pretty much urban legends and political claptrap. The thing that bugs me about it is that no one ever bothers to CHECK these messages, especially when there’s a neutral site like Snopes that does a damn good job of going through the BS. Well, today, my father sent me a forwarded chain mail from a friend of his. I read it, and felt compelled to respond. I’ll put it all behind a cut so no one has to suffer if they’re not interested.
Read more “I hate forwarded chain mail that hasn’t been checked.”

This was written by David Michael Green, and I got it off of Jenn’s LiveJournal. I’ll put it behind a cut so as not to overwhelm the friends pages of those who read via LJ. :-)

Read more “You know your empire’s crumbling…”

I have to admit to a small bit of surprise.

Yesterday I went over to Dave’s apartment. The route I normally take to his apartment takes me through the intersection of FM 1960 and Veteran’s Memorial. While passing through there, I noticed something odd, and decided to look closer to confirm my suspicions.

The Bennigan’s there had closed down.

In addition, on the way home from Dave’s, I decided to detour slightly to confirm something I had noticed on the way home from Chayn’s last weekend. The Fuddruckers and Cliff’s on FM 1960 between Kuykendahl and Veterans had both closed.

I’m a little surprised that the Cliff’s and the Fuddruckers closed. I had only been in the Cliff’s once, but the Fuddruckers had always seemed to be well-patronized. I wouldn’t be surprised if the closure was due to lost business due to the construction on Kuykendahl.

As far as the Bennigan’s goes, though… as nostalgic as I am about it, I have to admit the service had been declining over the past few years. The nostalgia comes from the fact that it was the first restaurant we ate at when we first moved to Houston in 1980, and when I grew up we would eat there for lunch every Sunday. It’s a shame to see it go, but then again I suppose its time had come.

Ah, well. Right now I’m on my way to Willowbrook to get a new pair of jeans with a slimmer waist. When we’re done there, we’ll go into the Willowbrook Bennigan’s for dinner. At least that one has maintained decent service. :-) It’s a shame about those others, but you know what they say: all (good) things come to an end.

EDIT – 5:25 PM – What the hell? The Willowbrook Bennigan’s is closed too. I wonder if the crazy lunch specials they had caused enough loss of revenue where the had to close some restaurants. The nearest one is the one at I-45 and 1960 (which they inaccurately say is the “Cypress” one). So, now, we’re at Ruby Tuesday’s having our dinner…

Right now, I’m at a bar called the Boulevard up in the Woodlands. We’re sitting in the rooftop area, and we got to see the Woodlands firework show clear as day. It’s a pleasant night, too.

Chris’s mom just joined us, too; Chris, his girlfriend Brandy, George, and I are just sitting here enjoying a few drinks and catching up. I hadn’t planned to do anything tonight, but this is quite fun.

I hope you’re all having fun, and may post a short video of the fireworks later. :-)

I’ve probably mentioned this before, but my father has a joke he does around about Thanksgiving. As is commonly known, my parents emigrated to the States from England in the late 60’s, and he still has his accent. So, people say to him, “You guys don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, do you?” My father usually replies with, “Yes, we do, but being British, we celebrate it on the Fourth of July.”

Well, a couple of days ago he tried the reverse version of the joke while at the barbershop, and it backfired on him. Knowing how our barber (a real redneck sort) doesn’t even know this website exists, I think I’m kind of safe to tell this story…

Anyway, Dad was in the barbershop, getting his hair cut, and it was just him, the barber, her son, and another customer were in there. The barber asked if Dad had any plans for the Fourth of July. Dad responded with, “No, I don’t have any special plans for Thanksgiving.”

The other customer looked at Dad with a very pissed-off expression, but didn’t say anything. The barber, on the other hand, gave Dad a blank look. It was obvious to him that neither one actually got the joke, so he attempted to explain it to her.

“What is the Fourth of July?” Dad asked.

“Independence Day,” the barber replied.

“And who did you win independence from?” Dad asked again.

“Mexico,” the barber replied.

Dad didn’t say how he reacted, but the look of horror on my face and Mom’s face pretty much said it all. I’m actually glad I wasn’t there, really, because my response would likely not have been very polite. *sigh* It’s times like that where my faith in humanity, small as it is, dies a little more…