Okay, so I blew off writing again yesterday. It’s not like anything happened that I didn’t predict in Saturday’s posting. I did, in fact, work on the Universe Changed project. (I have a good “master disc” for the first two episodes, and I have up to the 5th episode’s raw capture file on the hard drive.) I didn’t reinstall Linux on the server, but then again I did get the printer to work. (The traditional thinking in Linux-land is that you don’t need a reboot to make things work. Sometimes, however, the traditional thinking is worth just about as much as the paper it’s written on.) I vegged out quite a bit, catching five episodes of Noir and finishing up the night with a good round of Empire Earth during which The Roomie, The Ratboy and I stomped all kinds of over our computerized opponents.

Ah, mayhem. It does a psyche good.

D’oh-eth! I totally spaced out on writing an entry yesterday. First it was a busy (and long) workday, then it was fighting with my printer at home, then it was several hours of mostly-enjoyable CoH gaming, then it was fall over asleep.

You’d think that somewhere in there I’d have cranked out some verbage, but you’d apparently think wrong. Ah well.

Today’s going to be busy, so I’m doing this now. Let’s see… trip to Fry’s to get compy parts for The Ex, hang out with kidlets, then go eat and watch movies with Lil’ & Co. Yep, that’s going to pretty much fill my day. Tomorrow? I’m vegging out as much as possible. You betcha.

Oh, I might reinstall Linux on my home server, though (on account of the aforementioned printer trouble, among other general disappointments with Fedora Core). And I want to work on the Burke VHS-to-DVD Project. Damn. No vegging for me, this weekend…

Is it just me, or are some three-day weekends actually shorter than their normal, two-day counterparts?

I could use for this particular weekend to have lasted, oh, a few days more. Seriously. Le sigh.

You wouldn’t think that it would take very long to get from SE 39th and Gladstone to SE 34th and Belmont by bus, especially when you get to the bus stop just in time to catch one. Today, you’d be wrong, however. Did you know they’re doing paving on 39th? I didn’t. I do now, though. We couldn’t even get off the bus at Belmont.

Our destination? The Tao of Tea, a nifty little hole-in-the-wall tea place (go figure). Of course, we almost missed it due to the hustle and bustle of… the Belmont Street Fair, taking place one day only… today. Of course.

This is the sort of wacky luck I tend to have. It makes life more flavorful, I suppose, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Oh, and the coconut mint frappe was pretty good. (Seriously? The size of the tea menu borders on the mindboggling.)

One of those rare, if you’ll pardon the pun, joys in life is a holiday weekend during which one is allowed to consume respectable amounts of fire-grilled meat. Yesterday it was burgers at home; today it was steaks at Lil’ & Geoff’s place. In both cases, I enjoyed it to the fullest and then some.

As a guy who’s pretty much broke, I’m considering this the feast before the famine, but you know what? It’s meals like this that see you through the days of sandwiches and ramen noodles. Heck yeah.

On a side note, I also only have a three day work week ahead. I’m taking Friday off because someone special is coming to town. As the kids say, “Sweet!”

There are certain rituals when the kids come to my place for a visit that are becoming, if not time-honored, at least somewhat amusing. For instance: Erica must not like what’s for dinner. Alex must pace, a lot. Erica must give the kitties lots of love. Alex must gaze longingly at the Playstation 2 long enough to work up the nerve to ask if he can play on it. And so on.

Seriously, though, it was a pretty good visit. We even got in a game of Carcassonne… during which I lost by ten points (and I only did that well because I was master of the farmland and the trade goods) and the kids had six points separating ‘em. Erica won, mind you. Maybe I shouldn’t have finished that city of hers, but I couldn’t let her tie me on textiles, now could I?

I also talked Alex into rolling a new character in City of Heroes. I suspect his new Sonic/Sonic Defender will replace his Force Field character before too long.

Anyway, I was glad to have them over. It’s nice to have a change of venue from time to time, you know?