Prelude to Dissapointment

02.08.2009

This weekend I

• Washed the car.
• Cleaned up/out the garage a little more
• Played Lego Batman, Lego Star Wars, Fight Night Round 3, Nascar 09, and downloaded 2 songs for Guitar Hero World Tour for the X-Box Three Hundred and Sixty (my butt was firmly planted on the couch Saturday)

I managed to throw in a little work too, but I did that late in the weekend and it's not much fun to talk about - mainly fruitlessly searching help forums.

While cleaning up the garage I came across another box of odds and ends that I should have thrown away years ago. Finally getting tired of moving the stupid box around for years, I emptied the contents into the garbage can. One of the things that caught my eye as it tumbled into the trash was the CD longbox of the soundtrack to Prelude to a Kiss. I had somehow managed to hang onto this box for nigh on 15 years. Intentionally.

The picture on the box was what had always caught my eye. Back in '92 Meg Ryan and Alec Baldwin were... well, I'm not sure what they were, but they could take a good picture. There was something about the pose above, it just brought forth all types of emotion for me.

I saw the artwork on the box 15+ years ago, and ever one for a good marketing campaign I went and saw the movie. I hated the movie. I knew nothing of the movie going into it, just figuring it for another chick flick. Instead of a good chick flick formula, it's a Freaky Friday variation with Baldwin spending all of his quality time with some old fart.

Maybe I would have better luck with the soundtrack? I like soundtracks, I listen to many. Not show-tunes, but soundtracks. Plus the soundtrack came packaged in the box with the cool picture I liked. So I got the soundtrack. And it sucked. But at least I had a box with the picture I liked.

I'm not sure what I was going to do with that box 15 years ago. Hopefully it was something along the lines of "I will keep this and scoot it around while always keeping it marginally in my way until I throw it away in 2009." If that's the case, then I've completed my task. I still like the picture, though.

Permalink movies/tv/dvd rambling random

Shootin'

02.04.2009

Last Thursday I went pistol shooting for the first time with my good close personal friend/gun-nut Skeeter. Skeeter calls me Bubba to celebrate our rednekkidness, and as such I call him Skeeter. I see no reason to go into further details at this juncture.

I've been looking into purchasing my first handgun of late, mainly because it's one of those things I've always said I wanted to do yet always put off. Jerry and I sauntered into the local gun store a few weeks back and I whittled down my choices, but I had yet to shoot anything since the .22 during Rifle Class in ROTC in high school. Enter Skeeter, not just an owner of guns, but someone I could ask all my stupid questions of.

Skeeter (and Mrs. Skeeter) met me at the local pawn shop/shooting range and proceeded to show me the basics - how to load a clip, how to slap the clip into the pistol, how to hold the pistol so the slide doesn't catch your hand, etc. Most importantly, he let me ask my stupid questions so I wouldn't be afraid of doing something stupid and blowing my fool head off. After an hour I had borrowed a .45 from the range that better fit my big meaty man-hand than what Skeeter had brought and I was loading clips, loading guns, and killing paper target people.

This was the last target I shot at a range of (I think) 7-10 yards. Although I didn't hit exactly where I thought I was aiming, my grouping looks good enough that I was at least aiming consistently. The recoil of the pistols (I also shot a different .45 and a 9mm) was more than I thought, so that took a little getting used to. But I think I like shooting.

Plus, I can defend myself if ever attacked by black silhouetted paper people.

Permalink random

Early Taxes

01.29.2009

Today I received my last W-2 for 2008 in the mail, and anxious to see how having 2 jobs for 75% of the year would work out for me I logged onto Amazon and downloaded this years version of TurboTax (now in my 10th year of using it!). There's good news and bad news.


I owe the federal gov't, but Alabama owes me twice(ish) what I owe the feds.

How does that work?

I don't have many forms, as my income and deductions aren't that complicated. I've got 2 W-2's and 1098 for mortgage interest. I didn't do any paying side websites for the year, so there's no extra income there. Due to that, I don't have any home office deductions.

Wish there was a way to count all of those home improvements/repairs that I had Mike the Contractor handle.

Just to be safe, I'm going to wait for a month and see if any more official looking forms make their way into my mailbox. I'm not in that big of a hurry to write a $332 check anyway.

Permalink random

Widgey 2K9!

01.26.2009

After more than 6 months since the last officially sanctioned Widgey Nite (in which Greg & I won!)), the next Widgey Nite has been scheduled for Sunday, marking not only the return of Widgey Nite, but it's the first Widgey Nite of 2009!

Due to a request by Greg, we're going to play one of the variations of the latest edition of Risk. There's supposed to be a "quick play" version, which I think just sets the number of turns in a game. I still have to pop open the box and read the rules. I've never actually played Risk, so I'm looking forward to this in a wary way.

Adding to the excitement is who may or may not show up. Lord Ford has a previous Super Bowl engagement. Evil Mathias is in Germany, and although he is scheduled to return Saturday he may be jetlagged/not know/not want to come.

But here comes Widgey 2009 baby!

Permalink boardgames

Jer & Russ' Day Of Fun Grown-Up!

01.22.2009

This past Saturday, my good close personal friend Chas along with myself, ventured out to do things that we had never (or seldom) done. No no, nothing kinky.

I picked up young Chas around 9:30 in the morning and carted him off to Nashville. We had an odd errand or two which was taking us to Nashville, so we were going to enjoy it. Sure, pretty much everything we had planned to do in Nashville could have been done in Huntsville, but there's nothing blog-worthy about that. So off to Nashville we went!

Our first stop (bank and gas station not withstanding) was J Alexanders where I introduced Chas to Steak Maui. Good, manly steak, marinaded in soy, brown sugar, ginger, and a couple of other things for 4-7 days. Yes, I talk to the wait staff too much and find out things.

Afterward we made our way to Frugal MacDoogal Wine & Spirit Warehouse, where liquors can be found 20% cheaper than in Alabama. With a combined 9 bottles of liquor, it's possible we may have qualified as bootleggers when bringing it back across the state line but I can't find anything concrete to back that up.

On the way back home (yes, we only did things in Nashville) we decided to up the ante by stopping by Madison Guns since both Chas and myself have been interested in taking up shootsmithing. Chas is a little ahead of me since he's inherited a .38 from Old Man Poplin.

Steak, liquor, guns. If we had some tobaccy the ATF would be all over us.

Instead we stopped by the comic store on the way back to Jer's house.

Permalink road trip