More or Less Lazy Sunday

The big achievement for today was actually an achievement.  I got The Peterson achievement today ahead of my planned schedule.  Fifty hours of FIFA Soccer 09 – crazy.  It’s the last achievement I can get for the game since the EA servers supporting the game were turned off earlier this year.

My playtime was interrupted when my daughters broke the toilet seat connectors in the upstairs common bathroom wrestling over who was going to get a particular orange towel.  I had to run to Home Depot to get replacement parts and fix the toilet seat.  A small kink in the day.

The rest of the day was just hanging out with the family.  We watched Family Guy’s Blue Harvest and Something, Something Dark Side, parodies of Star Wars: A New Hope and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.  The movies are hilariously inappropriate like all Family Guy episodes.  The blu-ray set has profanity, so be advised.  I read some of my Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition Player’s Handbook and hit some roleplaying-focused blogs during the movies.  At 9 PM, we switched over to the Discovery channel to watch Shark Week.

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A Great Saturday

The family had a great Saturday.  Jen and I got up a little later than planned so we didn’t get done with our “morning” news reading and get-the-day-going routine until about 12:30.  Everybody worked hard on the yard today.  We had to pull about 50 square feet of raspberry bushes and other weeds from our back yard and got the lawn mowed.

I barbequed some awesome chicken and we ate dinner out on our back deck – it was a gorgeous day.  Jen and I had a bottle of 2010 Chateau St. Michelle Midsummer’s White Limited Release we picked up a few weeks ago and we enjoyed the sun until it retreated behind the trees here in aptly named Woodinville.

The kids enjoyed the TV for a little while until Jen put in Just Go With It with Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston.  If you’ve seen one Adam Sandler film, you’ve seen them all but it was a cute movie.  Sandler and Aniston had great on-screen chemistry and the main theme of be true, especially to yourself, at least has value.

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TGIF

I finished The City of Towers last night.  I had pretty much wrapped it up and just needed to finish reading through the appendices for good measure.  Gotta be thorough.    No I can move on to The Terror by Dan Simmons.  It’s a horror/thriller set against the backdrop of a mid 18th-century expedition in search of the Northwest Passage.

I got a lot done this week at work and it’s looking like I’ll get more tasks wrapped up next week.  I’ve had a number of long brewing projects and tasks that have been percolating so it’ll be a lifting of some burden.

Got some more FIFA Soccer 09 in today.  I think I’m on schedule to get The Peterson by August 2nd.  I may even get it this weekend if I knuckle down in the evening or if the weather turns foul.

Also watched a few movies tonight with the family.  We watched Willow with the girls.  They liked it.  I haven’t seen it in years but it’s a great fantasy film that’s tween appropriate.  Jen and I also watched John Carpenter’s The Fog from 1980 (I think a remake has been made recently).  It was OK.  Probably a little more scary 30 years ago.  Not bad.

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Diversity

I went for a run after work.  I figured I’d do a speed run.  My speed runs aren’t usually wind sprints or fartleks.  I normally just run a 5k as fast as I can.  Well, I busted out a personal best recorded mile-over-mile time since I left the army back in ‘95: 6:52 average mile time over 3.03 miles.  Yes!

After my shower, I logged 30 more minutes of FIFA Soccer 09.  I realized today that I had neglected the 50 minutes I had logged in online play, so that made up for the day I missed Tuesday.  Yes!

I didn’t feel like cooking tonight – I work an early shift to see my girls home and my wife works the later shift to see them off in the morning – so we went to our favorite restaurant: J.J. Mahoney’s.  I had the Chicken & Bacon Ranch, which I hadn’t had in years.  I don’t remember it being so delicious and I think I’ll be getting it again on those nights when I might have ordered a salad instead.  Yes!

Jen and I wrapped up the evening watching John Carpenter’s The Thing.  Creepy, psychological thriller/horror and one of my all-time favorites.  Yes!

…and tomorrow is Friday!

YES!

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A Seemingly Normal Day

I ran again today…a shade over five miles.  I was getting tired toward the end of it but kept a good pace.

I didn’t play any FIFA Soccer 09 yesterday so I had some time to make up to meet my August 2nd deadline for The Peterson achievement.  I was able to get nine matches knocked out before dinner.  My wife and I then watched The Thin Red Line this evening.  Boy is that a horrible movie.  Arthouse crap if I’ve ever seen it.  If the director was trying to capture the tedious boredom often associated with military service, mission accomplished!

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Reading, Running, and a War Movie

Nearly done with The City of Towers.  Really I just have to read the appendix – a guide to Eberron of sorts.  The story was very good and it kept me engaged.  Fantasy fiction can be difficult to read if there are a lot of action scenes but The City of Towers read more like a thriller or mystery.  I’ll be getting the next book from the library once I finish The Terror.

I did my five mile run today.  It’s hilly but I was able to keep a 7:40 mile pace.  Not bad.

I also watched We Were Soldiers with my wife tonight.  We had seen it before many years ago.  It seems a very realistic depiction of the first major battle of the Vietnam War.  But it’s not just about the battle.  It’s about the loyalty that Lt. Colonel Harry Moore commanded of his men and the impact to the families back home that would be the tip of the iceberg.  It’s up there with Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers as far as a quality, impactful war film goes.

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Random Day

I watched a little TV today (actually, TV shows on Netflix) – The Incredible Hulk from the 70’s and Iron Man: Extremis, a moving animation cartoon.  Iron Man: Extremis was a pretty cool story.

I also played a few games of FIFA Soccer 09 to stay on pace and busted out The Elder Scrolls V: Oblivion, which I haven’t played in forever.  The achievements are easy to get but very time consuming.

Feeling a little tired tonight, though.  I didn’t sleep at all last night.  I may just go upstairs and read until I pass out.

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Lazy Day

It was really sunny today in the Seattle area.  Some might say I wasted it but I had a good day.

I logged 310 minutes in FIFA Soccer 09 toward The Peterson achievement.  The last time I played was on Monday, so I was pretty far behind.  All caught up now.  I setup an exhibition match and just played a rematch until I was finished.  My left thumb is sore…

I also watched a few more movies tonight – one fun, one not so fun.

From Paris with Love was a fun watch.  A bit cheesy and over the top but fun to watch.  Action, action, and more action with a plausible plot.

Doubt…great performances and I can see the good screenplay in there.  The subject matter is, of course, uncomfortable though and the movie is otherwise not much to talk about.  If pedophilia perpetrated by the clergy and cover up by the Catholic church is a surprise to you, you’ve been living under a rock.

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Not a Fun Day

It was a late night yesterday – up until nearly 2 AM watching movies – so it was a late morning.  I had some coffee and caught up on some blogs and email before the inevitable, planned run to Home Depot at about 1:30.  I needed to replace a shower door sweep and the shower valves in the master bath to fix the leaking shower faucet that is starting to add up on the monthly water bill.  My house fu is not so good; it was fixing to be a bad day.

I purchased a new strip for the door sweep and some valve wrenches.  I worked on the door sweep for a little while until I could turn the water off (other chores going on).  Unfortunately, my silicone sealant had oozed out the back over my caulk gun and I had to spend quite a bit of time getting that fixed.  With no sealant for the door sweep, I moved onto the valves.

The hot water valve came out with little work.  The cold water valve was…difficult.  The home is about 35 years old.  Corrosion is everywhere on the plumbing.  I really had to work hard to get the cold water valve out.  That’s when I noticed what I thought was a part missing from the hot water valve.  It turns out the faucet seat came out with the cold water valve – it turns out this is not normal – but I didn’t know any better and thought I had broken something.  I got it straightened out though – I now own a seat wrench that I’ll probably never use again – and bought a pair of replacement valves with the help of the Home Depot staff.  The replacement was pretty simple once the valves and seats were removed.  I was able to take a hot shower this evening without any leaking in the plumbing and without any leaking from the faucet once I was done.  I did probably met my annual quota for profanity today however.

Relaxed with some pizza for dinner and a few brews.  Watched the last two-thirds of My Sister’s Keeper.  It’s a movie about a girl who was largely, or at least partly, conceived to provide donor assistance for her sister.  She sues her family to become medically emancipated, which is really just a cover so the dying sister can die.  The court battle is the McGuffin that drives the meat of the movie – coming to terms with the inevitable death of a child and the powerlessness that goes with that.  It’s got a few tear jerking moments if you have kids or if anyone close to you has died from some debilitating disease.  Not bad.  Not uplifting though.

Also so Up in the Air with George Clooney.  The movie was OK.  The downer near the end of the movie, which I knew was coming in some form, really took it down a peg for me.  I do not have a poet’s heart or mind, so the happy ending was lost on me until my wife pointed out other opinions voiced online.

I also read some more of The City of Towers.  It’s moving pretty quick.  I should have it done soon.

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Friday Night, Movie Night

I’ve been watching a lot of movies lately.  Tonight…

• The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior – Boy, was this a stinker.  When your headliner is a UFC cage fighter, you’re really managing your expectations.  I’m surprised this was released to the theaters.  Poor script, poor acting, poor special effects – this looked like something you’d catch on the SciFi channel at 2 AM staring Dean Cain.
• The Last House on the Left (1972) – Another poor movie (my wife and I were looking for a theme night I guess).  The movie couldn’t decide if it was going to be a thriller or a comedy.  There are some graphic scenes (70’s nudity and all that – not in a good way in this movie, either) but it’s paired with a couple of moronic cops that appear only to lighten the mood and a soundtrack that, while dated, still doesn’t fit the tone of the film with its lightheartedness.
• Hollywoodland – Best for last.  Ben Affleck gives a great performance as George Reeves.  The movie is a fictitious investigation of George Reeves death by a two-bit P.I. played by Adrien Brody.  The movie does a great job of painting the picture of a town where the story takes on a life of its own and becomes its own fiction.  In the end, the story boils down to the happiness of the simple things in life.

I also read a little more of The City of Towers.  It’s moving along at a good pace.  I’ll probably finish it in a few days and then I can move onto an other book I got from the library.

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