There is only ZUNE. It’s out, and wow has it gotten little to bad press. Microsoft finally released it’s new media player, the Zune. I have been waiting for it for quite a while now, reading up on it where I could, saving money, etc. November 14th came around and I was at Target at 8am to pick one up. While I wasn’t the only one there to get one, there wasn’t exactly a line of campers out front to get one either. Point one against Microsoft, a little more advertising probably would have helped with this. Regardless, I went in a bought my new Black Zune. (the brown one looks like a turd brick) Target had a total of 4 of each color, and I got the first of the black ones.

So, first thing, let’s go over the publicized specs:

• WMA, MP3, AAC, JPEG,WMV, MPEG-4, H.264 media playback
• Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g) connectivity
• 30 GB Hard Drive
• 3 inch video LCD 320×240
• White, Black, and Brown Colors
• FM Radio
• Dedicated song download site zune.net
• Podcast playback
• Updateable Firmware
• Tested 13 hr battery life for audio, 4 hr video
• 3 day playback of Wi-Fi transferred songs from friends
• XBOX streaming
• XBOX (Microsoft) points compatibility
• Preloaded music videos
• Over two dozen accessories at launch
• 5.6 ounces in weight, 4.4 x 2.4 x 0.58 inches size
• Metric: 158 g, 112 x 61 x 14.7 mm size
• Custom background images
• WiFi transfer of photographs
• Tag based storage system (Will not appear as drive)
• PC Compatibility (no Mac client at launch)
• Zune tag enabled
• Horizontal and vertical video orientation

The website Zune Scene also has a great comparison chart with the 30gb Ipod. Anyways, I had to head to work so I really didn’t get to play around with it till I got home (and it needed to charge) so, fast forward to the evening where I get to tear it apart. So it comes with all the parts and what-not that every other player comes with. Lets start with the pieces before we get to the player. The USB cable is on par with the Ipod one (I had a Ipod Mini and a shuffle before this), nothing terribly exciting about it, it’s a cable for petes sake. The headphones (ear buds) are good. I liked the sound of them, but for the most part, you either cope with the headphones you get or you have your own that you use. I liked the look and design of them, and the magnetic backs of the buds was kind of cool to keep them from getting too tangled. It was also a bitch to get the little foam covers on the damn things. But that could just have been me.

The Documentation was kind of a waste unless you really don’t know what you are doing. You can see in the pictures, they have the “dropping in a CD and plugging in USB for dummies” pictures. You also get a little card that has a code (obscured by my pen) for the 14 day free trial of the Zune Pass. The box itself had all this stuff crammed into little side compartments, which actually was pretty cool. I didn’t have to tear out all sorts of weird packaging to get at any particular piece. So, with that done…..let’s get to the player.

The first feel of the player was good. It has some weight to it, and the translucent over coating really made it feel comfortable. I have seen a lot of players that just feel cheap in your hands and you think they are going to break by looking at them, this isn’t the case. The buttons are few and straight forward. One of the things that is getting annoying is the constant claims of the circle control on the front being a bite off of Ipod and such. It’s not a wheel, it’s just a directional pad, and a very functional one at that. If you think they stole the design from Ipod, go out and look at 90% of other players on the market. They all have some sort of directional pad/wheel. Welcome to free enterprise. You have the pad, a back button, a play/pause button, and on the top is the hold slider.

Firing up the box, I was greeted by the standard menu and was able to jump in and play some of the pre-loaded content. I have to say, this was awesome for MS to do. Walking out of the store, you can fire it up and start playing music or videos. The menus were fairly easy to master. You can use the d-pad to move up and down the selections. Left and right are to change the category. For example, you select “Music” and are greeted by a list of albums in your Zune. Up and down will select which album (if you have a lot, you can hold up or down to zip through, a letter will show up on the side to show where you are in the list). If you hit left or right you can change to the artist category, again and you go to songs. So, going back to the albums section, if I select (center of the d-pad) an album, I get a list of the songs on that album. The left and right move me to the next album on the list. For me, at least, it was fairly intuitive. I used the back button to back out of any selections.

Next step was hooking it up to the PC (good thing I had those pictures handy). The CD was worthless, I went to Zune.net and downloaded the latest version (like I do with all new stuff). Running the install took a while to do it’s little update, and as with all MS software, I had to reboot. After the reboot, and firmware update, I hooked up the Zune and it went to town downloading all of my songs to it. Ok, so here is problem #2. I have about 60gb of songs, and my poor little Zune is only 30gb. I spent a good hour or so figuring out how to get it off its auto-sync tirade. The MS answer to get it to skip songs is to delete them from the Zune, of course this means letting it download them all first. Yeah, not so much. I set it to manual sync and…..crap just lost all the pre-loaded stuff. DAMNIT! Ah well, the Zune marketplace has a playlist with the songs on it for download, so if I really wanted to I could get them back.

After about another hour, the Zune software had completed compiling all of my library and play lists from Itunes. I went about moving over all of the stuff I wanted on the Zune and starting the sync. Here goes another hour while it syncs up. I threw in some pictures and videos as well. After the last of it was over to the Zune, I started playing around with my own content.

Setting the background was a snap, go to picture, select picture, center button, set as background. The radio function is kind of cool, if you are in a place that has good reception. The internal antennae kind of sucks, but I didn’t buy it solely for a radio. Watching videos on it is nice. I have seen videos on the Ipod and the screen is just too small. I know that the actual resolution and such is on par with the Ipod but the larger screen really makes a difference. Interesting fact: when watching a video, the d-pad flips as well as the player. Up/down = volume, left/right = fast forward/reverse. In music mode, the same functions apply. The pictures displayed look crisp and clean on the screen. I kind of wish that if a picture is in portrait mode, it would flip and fill the screen, but in picture mode it’s landscape view only. D-pad cycles through the pictures.

I also activated the 14 day trial for the Zune Pass. The Pass is MS’s all you can eat buffet of music through the market place. For a measly $14.99 (about the cost of a CD) per month, you can download/listen/put on your Zune and take with you, any of the songs in their library. You can also listen to CD quality full length music through the PC software (no download needed). This is huge for me as I hate the 30 second preview crap. So here is another test in the works. Right now I have the 14 day trial going and I pulled down some music and threw it on the Zune. According to the Zune pass, as long as I have an active subscription, I can listen to the music. If the subscription runs out, it won’t let me listen. So what happens if I don’t sync. Does the music on the Zune time out? I’ll know in about 13 days! If it doesn’t, I may think about paying for a month, loading up, then listen for about 3 months, then fill up again. We’ll see.

In the Engadget review they commented about how when the Zune is plugged in, it’s basically a brick. This is NOT true. While the Zune software is running, your Zune is “connected” and is seen by the software, if you close the software, the Zune menu comes back and you can play with it while it’s charging. It does not get seen by windows as a drive. On a whim I decided to have some fun and hook it up to the Mac (yup, I have one and like it very much). While it does not initially do anything visible (like show up as a drive), I went into the system profiler and sure enough, under USB devices it see’s it as “Zune”. (Really should have got a picture of that).

So, the main reason I wanted the Zune if for use in the truck. I have a good stereo there, and it even plays MP3 CD’s but I keep wanting more than just 700mb. I am so spoiled too, I even have XM there as well. So I bought myself a splitter and split my AUX-in for the XM to have an extra port for the Zune. It sits nicely below the 4×4 shifter in the truck. Another interesting fact: When you unplug the audio jack, whatever you are doing pauses. I understand that other players do that too, but damn that’s cool! So now it’s very nice to be driving around with the Zune, I can hit shuffle all and left/right d-pad through random songs.

Over all I am really happy with the Zune, while I haven’t had the chance to play with any of the Wi-Fi (report on that soon with Goon-Zune Buddy’s, Pukestain Pal’s help). There are a lot of things that can be improved. The Zune marketplace software could use some help, videos would be nice, but I am optimistic that those features will come. Also I am holding out that MS will implement some capability to sync via wireless, or allow us to browse some online content via wi-fi. The hardware is in place, it wouldn’t take much to push out through firmware. In the mean time, I am really happy with my choice. All of the Pictures are located here

I have officially had one of the best weekends ever! It was crazy, nervous, action packed, amazing, wonderful, and some might even venture to say…..magical. (Part of the magic was how much was actually crammed into so little time) So, I should probably start off with the question of who the mysterious girl from the last post is. She is someone who is truly a dear friend and has been for many many many years. Sadly we had lost track of each other for a while but had gotten the chance to reconnect. At first it was great to have a good friend back in my life (as a good friend), but over just the last few months something more came shining through. It’s silly how feelings like this grow where you wouldn’t expect them to, when you don’t expect them to. I hadn’t even thought about the idea of anything when bam, I was slapped in the head with the “I care for you a great deal” fish.

So, anyways, when I found out she was going to be in the area, I went for it and asked her out on a official date. It’s weird because we had known each other for so long, but we have never really gone out like this. When she agreed I went about planning one of the best nights ever. First stop, a reservation at Marrakesh. It’s a Moroccan restaurant that was VERY highly recommended. I have to say, it was one of the best places I have ever eaten at. It’s not in the best part of town, but it’s worth the trip. When we got there, we had to knock on the door (it’s very discreet). Inside was all themed in the Moroccan style, everything, it looked amazing. They took us back to the back room where we got to sit on this small pillowed bench in front of this little table. The waiter placed out a menu that had only the wines listed on it. We picked out the house red wine. Shortly after they brought the wine out, he brought by a small pot and a kettle. This was for us to wash our hands as he poured water over them. He explained the 6 courses that would be brought out. (Unfortunately, he had a very thick accent and I only caught about ½ of what he described).

First out was the “salad” which consisted of cooked eggplants in tomato Sauce cucumbers and tomatoes in Mediterranean seasoning oasis carrots with coriander. It’s important to mention the carrots here. REALLY important. The carrots were, oh my god, yeah, oh my god. Then, the B’Stella: layered pie with chicken, assorted nuts, almonds, eggs, parsley, and onions topped with confectioners sugar and traced with cinnamon. While it was hot to start with, which made it difficult to eat seeing as how, oh by the way, we had no utensils. Yeah, you don’t use them here. Every bite of this thing was heaven. At the time, I didn’t even know what was in it. It didn’t matter! Next, Tajine of lamb with almonds and honey. The meat fell off the bones and the honey added so much to the taste that it was incredible (I am so going to run out of words to describe). It was sometime during this that the belly dancing started. The music was pumping and we had an extremely talented (and muscular) dancer come out and dance. She even managed to get a number of the girls to stand up and join in the dancing. Including someone in particular.

After the dancing, we enjoyed a plate of Couscous rand Atlas topped with vegetables, chick peas, and raisins. I loves me some Couscous! Just before dessert we were treated to a good sized bowl of fruit with some of the best grapes in the entire freakin world! There was also these two really cute tiny apples, I almost didn’t want to eat them because they were so cute! (almost) Finally the waiter came out with a tray and two glasses to which he poured us tea from a kettle held about 4 feet above the glasses! We enjoyed it with our Moroccan pastries as our desert. The entire dinner took from 8:30 till after 11pm. (if you plan on going here, something to keep in mind, they don’t take credit cards, but they have a very well stocked ATM in the building.) With dinner finished, we set out on the rest of the night. A lovely moonlight walk through DC.

We found a great place to park just behind the white house. (did you know they shut off all the lights there at around 11pm? I guess George needs the lights out to sleep.) We walked around the White House and just to the east is a paved out map of DC called Freedom plaza. Thinking quickly I whipped out my cell phone and brought up the MP3 of a specific song. We danced slowly in the middle of DC (figuratively and literally). This was a very special moment, well, at least it would have been if we weren’t rudely interrupted by some jack hole who wanted to sell me a flower. Seriously, if you see two people dancing in each others arms, enjoying a moment, WHY ON EARTH would you interrupt them?? [sigh]. After we told him to go away and finished our dance (thankfully I think we managed to salvage the moment) we walked across into the Regan building complex. It’s really quite beautiful right now with the leaves in the trees changing to a stunning yellow shade. All of the trees were already decorated with Christmas lights so it appeared as if the stars were coming down to meet us. We sat beneath them for a long while and talked, staring into each others eyes.

After what seemed like only seconds but was actually quite a while, We continued along the walk. We crossed over to the main mall area to catch the breathtaking view of the capitol building and the Washington Monument. Although, they really couldn’t compare with the stunning view of a beautiful woman in a black and white dress (with a lovely furry coat, btw, thanks Shasta!). We started to head towards the Washington Monument, taking a slight detour in the leaves. Wait, did I say detour? No, no detour here. Straight on to the Monument! Needing a little bit of a rest, we sat on the railing in front of the monument and enjoyed the un-lit view of the front of the White House. Now, not saying that the rest is bad, but, had someone brought shoes for walking (like I had mentioned quite a few times) someone wouldn’t had gotten a blister on her foot now would she? We decided that it would be a good time to head back to the truck so we took a fairly direct route back. 2.61 miles later we arrive back at the truck. On the trip back we listened to soft music and I could tell that she was already very very exhausted. We arrived back to her door by 2:30am where I kissed her good night and she went in to (hopefully) have sweet dreams. I made it home just before 3am where I did the same. Thank you Emily, the date was indeed magical.

That, was Friday. The rest of the weekend was spent with me walking around with a huge smile on my face. I was in an incredible mood! Andrew and I had a great lunch a Fat Tuesdays (really cool New Orleans food down by the comic shop). Emily and I argued the finer points of who is the better Gomez Adams (I still say Raul Julia!), Doc and Diz came over and we had a great visit where we all watched Battlestar Galactica and got to chat it up. Oh, and before I forget, I got to spend the evening with Emily and her Sisters family watching the new Bollywood classic, “Bride and Prejudice”. (Ok really, how can you have a new classic, who would even say that, if it’s new, how can it be a classic! If it’s a classic, it’s NOT new!) It’s awesome to have a movie suddenly burst out into song and dance! (Screw in the light bulb, pat the dog.) Thanks again to Beth and Rene for a hosting a fun movie night. It really added to the weekend.

So now she is on a flight back to Florida and will be landing shortly. We said our “see ya laters” at the airport and I already miss her. Thankfully, she is coming back soon! Wow, what a weekend!

One of the things I have learned in my many travels is that it is extremely easy to look back on life and say “Why did I do that?” and “What if I had done this?”. What makes life challenging and interesting is how hard it is to move forward with life and discover all of the incredible things that are waiting for us just around the bend. The adventure lies in that we don’t know what is there and every day is a new discovery!

Those of you who are avid readers know that the last few months have been tough with what life deals out. Those of you who know me close (and get the whole story) know this with my depth. All that said, it’s time for me to embark on the path that life has for me and to stop sitting at the crossroad looking down where I have been. Memories will always be there (until I get old and start forgetting things, but that’s why I have this blog right?) experiences are there for me to cherish and learn from, but if I spend to much time thinking about the past experiences and memories, I may miss out on the ones yet to happen.

What is all this leading up to? Well, it’s kind of hard to say, but, I believe I have a date this weekend. The funny part about it is that I haven’t really gone on a “first date” in years. While I am nervous, a little, it’s someone that I have known for a long time. She herself is at a crossroad in life and is getting ready to make some decisions. Outside of the whole date aspect, she is a really good friend as well, and I care for her a great deal. As a matter of fact, she was the muse behind my latest video that I edited together.

I know the timing on this may come as a shock to some people, but I don’t deal the cards, I just play the hand I have been dealt. Sometimes you get good cards, sometimes you just have to fold. (every now and then you get pocket aces and some bastard gets a flop of 7 8 9 while holding the 10 and J and your betting big because of your aces and he is just laughing and laughing and laughing while taking your money……bastard)…..Anyways, I feel my hand is good, time for me to raise the blinds.

Ok, so last night was Halloween. For the most part it was a good time. We started the evening out with getting things ready for Trick-Or-Treating. We were picking up Andrews friend Zach and I was taking them around a few neighborhoods. The decided start time was around 5:30.

Well, it would have been if Andrew had remembered his helmet. He wanted to dress up as his Biker Scout so I asked him to triple check that he had every piece that he needed. He claimed he did so we headed out. It wasn’t until suiting up that we realized that the helmet was missing. The 8 mile round trip back to my place took a good 30 min!!! I hate traffic!

Once we got out and doing the trick or treating everything was cool, we headed out for the town home areas (less walking, more candy). I got the chance to start in on the new book I got: The Looking Glass Wars. The downside is that I was starving. I never did get the chance to eat before going. After the candy fest, we hit up Taco Bell where I had one of the most gut busting burritos on the face of the earth.

We finally went home to wrap up things for Andrew. The candy all looked good (there was even some cool looking Korean/Japanese/Chinese candies.) I sent Andrew off to bed and then went out for my own Trick-Or-Treating. A friend of mine said I should go to Bungalow Billiards for their Halloween party and Costume contest. Even though I didn’t have anyone to go with, I went down there and signed up for a table (why go to a billiards place if you’re not gonna play!) The contest wasn’t judging until Midnight so I have about an hour and a half to kill. I went ahead and changed into my Biker Scout. This is where I should have known better.

No, nothing bad happened to me or my armor, let me get that out now. But the core of the people in costume were in bad “Party City” costume in a bag style costumes. Something you can wear while getting drunk and not care about the next day. This should have been my first clue. I got to my table and started setting up to practice my shots (all while still in armor BTW). One of the guys at the table next to me came up and asked if I wanted to put $5 on a game. I proceeded to laugh hysterically.

“There is no way I am betting money on a game where I am wearing this armor!”

He offered up just a friendly game then and I accepted. I was fully expecting to get sharked into a pay game which I was ready for (I had no cash). Turns out he just wanted to play, and I was cool with that. He was there with a girl who was smoking hot, and dressed as Alice from wonderland. When I asked him what he was dressed as….

“Man, I’m dressed as a Gangster!”

“ummmmmmmmmm……..Kay” I replied. His costume consisted of a white T-shirt, and a ripped white cloth wrapped around his head. This would be the first point in the evening where I felt bad about our society. Through out the game, his girl would come up to him and do things to be affectionate or talk or just whatever. The response he kept giving her was always:

“step off bch,” or “get the fk off of me!”

Now, there was never any violence, so it wasn’t really my place to say anything, but wow did it make me sad. I could tell that 1: she normally gets treated like this from him and 2: She was eating it up and going back for more. This is one of those things I can’t fathom. My friend John tried to explain it to me, but I am still a bit lost on it. Apparently, some women like to be treated like crap.

Anyways, around midnight, the contest started and I got suited up (had to take off some of the arm armor to play). While standing in line next to a banana (who continually reminded me “I am a fking banana!”) I started to realize that, I was one of the few people in this crowd that wasn’t drunk. The contest was judged by applause, and at midnight, in a bar, filled with drunken people, who do you think is going to get more applause.

Hmmmm, On one side we have a half naked drunk chick shaking her ass(ets), on the other side we have a ………..(I could tell that the announcer was drunk) Guy from Star Wars! Yeah so, I decided to cut my losses and head out. Over all it was not a total loss for the evening. I got a lot of compliments about the costume, I got to play pool, I got out of the house, and yes, I got the chance to weep for humanity.

Wow, the annual Patton Halloween party is usually something to behold. This year, it was LEGENDARY!!! (those of you who watch “How I Met Your Mother” will understand that one). This year I went as “Myspace.” I figured that enough people would be giving me crap about having a myspace account now, I would just beat them to the punch and go full boar. The costume was taken quite well, though Shipley said he might have to revoke my ghetto status because I spent too much on it. Somewhere around 11pm I changed into my neon Pirate costume so I wouldn’t get lost in the woods. I blinded most of the party goers and NASA called and asked me to take it off.

The party itself was awesome as usual. Personally I partied until about 3am when I just couldn’t make it anymore. It was great to see all those who came out for the party. Even the special guest of Cheeky Monkey Boy!! Robert came out all the way from Atlanta! (he brings out great gifts too, right Shipley?) Highlights of the party include, taking everyone’s picture in a my-spacey pose, the Annual walk through the woods (which I barely remember), the cuddle fest on the back patio to keep warm, and slapping Shipley on the back multiple times, not to mention taking all my pictures in the myspace style Ye Gods, I can’t wait for next year!

This weekend was filled with all sorts of everything. You wouldn’t think that so much could be gone through in such a short period of time, but it’s true! The first thing that I need to get out is probably the thing that cause the most emotion through the weekend. It is the end of an Era. After three years of a relationship, Amy and I have decided to part ways. There were a number of things that led up to this. Even she and I came to the realization that it was coming. For all those concerned, the part was amicable. she and I are still friends and still talk frequently. Her path is just leading in a different direction than mine. Like all things of this nature, it hurts, but it builds on our character and we use it as strength.

That being said…… LADIES….. THE LINE FORMS AT THE LEFT!!! GIGGITY GIGGITY GOO! (Ok, I’m just kidding!!)

So this weekend I decided I need to go out and have a drink (or 8). I talked with Paul and he said he was coming to the area anyways, we could go play poker and such. Well, me being the lush that I am, I started in on some ciders before he got there. By the 3rd cider and the hour and ½ that Paul was late, I was starting to get pissed (in more ways than one) (ok see, that’s a multinational joke, pissed = drunk, damn it so not funny when you have to explain it). I obviously wasn’t driving anywhere, but I didn’t want to sit at home and drink (oh wait, I already was). Finally, my Upstairs neighbor, Don, came down and was wondering why I hadn’t made it to the poker game. I grabbed my coat and we headed out to Bungalows. There, they brought me one of the most glorious sights….. a 32oz cider. This would be around the time I realized that, as much as the movies make it out to be easy, playing pool while intoxicated does not lend itself to good pool. I still won, 3 out of the 5 games, but damn my shots were off.

Amazingly, I woke up with no headache on Sunday morning. We got up and made our way out to the comic book store (and a lovely cup of chai). After that we came back and started preparations for PUMPKIN FEST 2006!!! Yup, it’s time to gut those melons again! We lit the fire and got things all toasty, invited the neighbors over and ripped into a few orange bastards. As you may have seen in the patio decorations, Andrew and I had 3 pumpkins to carve through. One of them being a 45lb monster! Andrew picked the Flash symbol for his, I did the Imperial cog (with a rebel projection). For the beast, the skin was so thick that we couldn’t do anything fancy to it. So we went traditional. You can see pictures of all of them in the gallery.

After our fruit carnage, we went to wrap up the pre-Halloween weekend with a movie. And what would be more appropriate than Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D!!! It was amazing, of course. The 3D effects were awesome. They didn’t go out of the way to throw things in your face or anything. They just provided depth to the movie. I almost wish they had done more outside of the screen. If you have the chance, go see it! I was amazed to see things that I had never noticed before (and I have seen this movie a lot)

On a side note, as I wrap up things. Andrew got the chance to get in on the Cheese It! action. He finished up a little music video of his own. Check it out here.

Hope everyone’s weekend went well!

A new idea has popped into the collective brain. (you thought about it Doc, you just didn’t know it). We love gaming, we love movies, and we love comedy. Why not take them all and smash them together and make something out of it! Enter Cheese It productions. This is a new “company” that we will produce machinima movies and distribute using a number of methods. With the advent of Myspace films and Youtube, the problem of hosting and bandwidth is a think of the past. Things are already in motion as we speak.

Cheese it is proud to bring you a video for Captain Dan (the authentic pirate hip hop artist).

My Cannon:

And now it’s time for yet another weekend update! There are a few things I need to post about and I am not entirely sure where to start (of course). First let me go with: Don’t go see Man of the Year! I love Robin Williams, I have always been a HUGE fan of his work. I remember the days when he was on Happy Days and Mork and Mindy! I have seen him Live and own a good portion of his movies. If you were to dice up this movie to just the parts where he was in it, it would have been a decent movie. They tried too hard to throw in lots of political intrigue and mystery and it just distracted from the whole point of the movie! So my suggestion to you, rent it, and then if you don’t see Robin Williams on screen, fast forward till you do. Nuff said.

Next, this Sunday we were all kinds of busy! We started out with a trip down to see Jody. Jody is the girl who cuts my hair. Ever since I separated from the military, I have decided to not get any more “barber” style haircuts. I have a decent enough job to afford me this small luxury. I have been seeing Jody for just over 2 years now so we sat and chatted it up for about 1 ½ hours while she cut mine and Andrews’s hair. (wow, that didn’t sound as gay in my head.) After receiving my extremely manly haircut, we headed down to pick up the weekly run of comics. (I should note that Jody works up in Great falls, and the comic book store is the south part of Fairfax so that’s about 14 miles)

After the Comics trip (which usually involves me BSing with the comic guys for a while on the finer parts of the DC universe) we saw a little garden place attached to the university mall parking lot. The just so happened to have a lot of the decorations we were planning on picking up to do up the front patio. So I figured, why not get it now! We picked up 2 bushels of corn stalks, 2 bails of hay, about 1 lb of miscellaneous gourds, 2 regular pumpkins for carving and one gianormous pumpkin! When we got everything home, we set about the decorating. This took up the rest of the evening. One of the bails of hay gave up it’s life for the sake of our new scare crow (or scare Emperor). Don, the upstairs neighbor got into the act too and we did up his patio to match. We even got a visit from another of our neighbors, or more importantly, his father. My other upstairs neighbor has his parents visiting from India and the father came out to help up with the decorations. He was extremely happy to see all the stuff going up because, as we learned, they have a very similar festival in India! It was very cool to have him there and hear about some of the traditions.

Lastly, there is something I think I need to clear up. There has been a little confusion as to a particular relationship I am having. It would appear that I am in a very abusive relationship with Maya. You see, she continues to make me do many things that end up causing me pain. Yet, I always go back to her. She yells at me sometimes too. Of course, I tend to yell back and sometimes it upsets me because Andrew can hear this. I really think things are going to get better so I keep seeing her.

Ok, if you haven’t guessed yet, Maya is my virtual Personal Trainer. She is a part of a program called “Yourself Fitness” for the X-box. I picked up this program a long while back and, like I posted earlier, I recently started up again. Apparently, not everyone realized who exactly Maya is. Sorry Dad, but I have to call you out on this one. I got an e-mail the other day from my father that had me (and the rest of my office, again, sorry dad) rolling. I won’t quote the whole thing, but here is a snippet:

“Your comments about Maya show you need help in interpersonal relationships. You goal is should not be what makes you happy, but what makes the other person happy. I have not met her, but she is a human being.”

Once I regained my composure, I sent out a little e-mail reminder to him that She, in fact, was not “a human being.” Now my office mates tease me about abusing Maya and hurting her feelings all the time. My Dad did write back to let me know that my Mom explained that the joke was on him and she told him who Maya was. So thanks, Dad, that really was one of the highlights of the week!