How to make your girlfriend’s outlook a lot bleaker…

All right, so, I made a pretty big gaffe on the way home.

As usual, I was talking to Misty on the phone when driving home, and she was telling me about a conversation she had had with an old friend of hers. At one point, Misty sighed and said something along the lines of, “The whole point of marriage is spending time with the one you chose to be with.”

In what I thought was a lighthearted manner, I replied, “Oh? I thought it was because of the tax breaks.”

The resulting silence was more dead than Kevin Federline’s career.

Next time, I’ll just remember to keep my trap shut. Though, I should say that Misty did state later that her silence was actually her rolling her eyes at me. Still… heh. That wasn’t one of my best moments.

Post-Labor Day and all that rot…

You know, it’s kind of hard for me to believe that we’re already past Labor Day. Damn… time really does fly. Now I’m two months away from my birthday… heh. It’s around the two month mark that my family’s tradition kicks in, and we start making our birthday lists. I haven’t started mine yet, though; it’s more out of laziness, truth be told, but there is another reason for it that I will get into in a bit. First, though…

On Friday, I took the time to listen to some of the Jack FM station that I mentioned in the previous post. I think I’ve found a keeper, as the station’s eclectic style is suiting me to a T. I could do without the commercials, but the lack of DJs is nice. The selection of music has been pretty good as well. Hopefully it’ll stick around for a while…

This weekend was actually more or less uneventful. On Saturday, the parents and I made our way to the Woodlands Mall for some shopping. I needed to get a few new pairs of underpants, so we made our way over to JC Penney. After buying them, I decided to splurge for dinner, so we went to the Cheesecake Factory. Even without ordering an appetizer I managed to stuff myself… heh. After dinner, we went back through the mall (Dad had parked at Dillard’s), and I stopped back by Penney’s to get a pair of boxers I saw there as a “what the hell” type purchase. Those friends who have seen the pic of them (no, I wasn’t wearing them) were highly amused. :-) While there, Dad pointed out that they had black leather blazers on sale. I used to have one before I accidentally tore the pocket badly when it got caught on an chair’s armrest. I always thought of it as my “Ninth Doctor” jacket, except it was single-breasted instead of double-breasted. Justin, on the other hand, referred to it as my “Shang Tsung” jacket. The one at Penney’s was made of thicker material and definitely seemed more durable, so I went ahead and bought one. Needless to say, I spent more than I was intending that evening, but it was worth it…

Sunday, on the other hand, was very slow other than meeting Louie for drinks and dinner. He’s going to Tokyo and Hong Kong next month on vacation, so this was very likely going to be our last night to meet up before he left. Hopefully he enjoys himself; I’d be jealous if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m facing the slight possibility of going to Shanghai for work at some point…

Monday was more or less quiet as well, other than talking to Misty. At least, it was until the late afternoon… when Dad and I booked our trip. A bit of backstory is in order: Dad had been saying he wanted to go to Vegas for several months, and when he learned Mom and Aunt Norma were going in December, he offered to go with them. He wasn’t happy when they turned him down, as it would mean the dogs would need to be boarded. (They listen to Mom. They listen to Dad. They DON’T listen to me.) However, Mom and I came up with an alternative solution: I would go with Dad on a separate trip. Dad and I scheduled our trip for the first full week in November, from Sunday to Thursday. Dad booked the hotel room, while I came up with the idea of using our frequent flier miles to pay for the flights. So, the trip is booked, and I’ve already arranged for the time off. So I can be ready, I’ve already been practicing playing Texas Hold Em on my Xbox 360 and on my PC. Hopefully I’ll do as well this time as I did the last time… :-)

As for the rest of this week… eh. It’s not been a good start so far. I figure any week that starts with encountering a busted coffee machine (delivering weak and lukewarm coffee) is not a good week. The rest of the day followed suit, and will probably end up with a couple of engineers being angry at me. *sigh* Ah, well… I’ll deal with it as it comes. Hopefully the rest of the week won’t be as bad.

For now, though, I’m going to grab a bottle of water and play another round of Texas Hold Em on the Xbox 360. I plan to be well practiced before the trip. :-)

“You SURE I can’t kidnap you?” “Yes, I’m sure.” “… grumble grumble grumble…”

So, I’m back from Jackson.

I have to say, it was good to get away from it all for a week. Of course, it also goes without saying that it was VERY good to spend an entire week with Misty. The fact that I had to leave was not an easy thing for either of us. Still, it was a good week, and we enjoyed ourselves. I’ll put what happened on the trip behind a cut so that those who are not interested can skip past. :-)
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A quick addendum regarding the previous post…

Apparently the pic came out a bit clearer on my phone than it did on the actual post, as at least one person has had difficulty in telling what the game I took a picture of was. The game is called The Grid, and it’s a game the MK development team worked on between Mortal Kombat 4 and Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. It’s a third-person shooter deathmatch style game, similar to Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament. It’s very rare; the few people I know who have seen it were MK Online staff members who saw it at the Midway studios. I’m rather shocked I got to see it, and just had to play a round or two. It’s a bit too bad it never made it to wide release; maybe the Midway people should consider releasing it to Xbox Live Arcade…

Anyway, yes, I’m still in Jackson visiting Misty. I’ll have a full report of what I did when I get back. For now, I’m just going to get some rest as I have a bit of a long day ahead of me tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes…