Category: Fun & Games

Weekend Fun

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Birthday Cake

Friday we went to my parents to celebrate Brother #2’s birthday. We only had K with us since E had a school event he was attending. It was weird only being there for four hours because we usually go on a Saturday around 2 pm and stay until 11 pm but this time we were only there from 6-10. It’s also tough to keep track of everything that’s going on because it feels like everyone is vying for my attention at the same time, not that I’m complaining! I felt bad because my brother was feeling a bit neglected since my attention kept getting turned elsewhere. If only they lived closer we’d probably visit more often because they may be dysfunctional (and what family isn’t?), but they crack me up and I nearly always have a good time. My mom even gave me a cute Valentine’s Day basket full of candy and some socks and gloves. I love that she still does this for me even if I have to share the candy with Joe. ;)

Valentine's Day Basket

Brother #1 was kind enough to let us borrow a few video games for the PS3 and Wii. I’m not a big game player but I liked Rabbids Go Home for the Wii enough that I played it for nearly an hour today. That’s a record for me!

PS3 – It Only Does Everything

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It’s funny, and kinda sad, because it’s true.

What else doesn’t the PS3 do? Play the MP3s stored on my computer even though I’ve set up sharing. I’ve already grown tired of Googling fixes to this and it’s really not that big of a need, so I decided a thumb-drive works well enough. I listened to a few Cure songs from one today, and watched an episode of Parks and Recreation just for the hell of it.

Joe has been wanting a PS3 for awhile so I decided to surprise him with one yesterday. Rarely does such an opportunity arise, so I had to take it, and it went so perfectly too. You should have seen his face! It was immensely satisfying.

Target had the PS3 on special and it included a $50 gift card with purchase. Since we practically live at Target it’s the same as getting the system for $250, so I thought why the hell not? It’s not just a gaming system, but a Blu-Ray player too, so even though we rarely buy DVDs, we can use it when we rent movies. And if we ever get a Netflix subscription we can stream content to it.

It was a bit disappointing that it didn’t come with any games or an extra controller, but whatever. I stopped at the library on the way home and borrowed two games and we’ll probably just do that for awhile instead of dumping between $30-$60 on a single game. If we get to the point where we want to play a two-player game then we’ll get a second controller from Amazon where they are only $40 instead of $55 at the store.

So it’s official now – we own all the latest systems, and I just realized they were all purchased around the same time of the year. We got the Wii in March 2008, the Xbox360 in March 2010, and the PS3 yesterday.

What was that I was writing before about unnecessary spending again? I don’t remember that. ;)

Roller Skating

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Last night’s skating “party” was fun. I had invited about 12 people and 5 people and their spouses/friends showed up. I could not believe how crowded the rink was! I honestly didn’t think roller skating was popular anymore, but boy was I wrong! The rink was packed with people which kinda sucked because it was extremely difficult to navigate with everyone skating at different speeds. I used to be a pretty decent skater and I was getting into a nice groove but ended up falling at one point trying not to run into someone, and now my right knee hurts. It feels like it’s deeply bruised even though no visible bruise has developed yet.

Surprisingly, I didn’t end up with any blisters on my feet like I used to get, although it felt like it once the night was over. It’s probably because I didn’t skate the entire time due to the aforementioned crowd.

I need to find a rink that’s either bigger or that offers skate times that aren’t as crowded. We were joking that we should open our own duel-rink facility – one rink for the slow skaters and one for the fast ones. My friend remarked, “one for over 25 and one for under 25” to which I replied, “same difference”. The majority of adults there were practically clinging to the walls to stay upright. I liked that the walls were covered in a rug-like material because the rink I used to skate at was pure concrete and had these huge “speed bumps” separating the rink form the other areas which would make you trip.

One thing that sucked was you couldn’t request music from the DJ. They went a little heavy on the R&B and while I don’t mind some, I didn’t want to listen to it all night. In any case, I would definitely like to go skating again soon, and plan on scoping out the other rinks in the area once my knee heals. And maybe I’ll try using my roller-blades instead of renting skates because my blades are more comfortable and I don’t have to worry about the tongue constantly moving over like on the skates. I had to reposition them every few minutes which was annoying.

Birthday Weekend

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My birthday weekend is coming to a close. It wasn’t terribly exciting, but nice. I worked on my birthday (Friday) but got lots of well-wishes from coworkers and friends via e-mail and Facebook which was really nice, and my Director treated me and my boss to lunch.

After work it was snowing a bit and I was exhausted, so instead of going out for dinner, we hit the McDonald’s drive-thru. If you think that’s lame, then I’ll have you know I also opened my presents from Joe the night before (with his permission, of course). He got me some perfume I’ve been wanting, a skin for my Kindle, flowers, a $15 iTunes gift card, and some chocolates.

Saturday morning I had a doctor’s appointment to follow up on my visit to the emergency room on New Year’s Eve. Afterward we decided to cash in on one of my birthday coupons and had lunch at Claim Jumper and then spent a quiet evening at home watching tv. I finally finished the Freaks & Geeks marathon I had DVR’d since I never paid it any attention when it originally aired a decade ago. Wow, what a great show; even better than Undeclared.

Today we made our weekly pilgrimage to Target where I cashed in on my free birthday drink from Starbuck’s, but since I’m staying away from the caffeine, Joe really got the benefit. For lunch I got my free bowl of noodles from Noodles & Company and then worked a few hours when we got home since last week was full of meetings which got me a bit behind. I did get some pleasant news in my work e-mail – our new CEO decided to add Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to our holiday rotation, so we’ve got a three day weekend coming up, woo hoo! Joe’s company has always had the day off but in the eight years at my company it’s never been a holiday for us. So that was nice news. Next weekend is going to be even better than this past one thanks to that and because it’s my skating “party”! I’m really looking forward to it.

Christmas

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We had a nice Christmas with my family and the kids. We picked the kids up Friday evening and went to my parents’ for food and games. Many years in the past we had played something called Crazy BINGO, and this year we played Crazy Uno. All the prizes were numbered and inside was candy and money. E made out good winning $50 and K got $20. I was happy with my $10 and Dove truffles.

Christmas morning we ended up sleeping until 9:15 because someone (me) forgot to set the alarm. I set the alarm time, but I didn’t actually activate it, and it was easy to sleep late after going to bed around 2:30. We got home before midnight but I was wide awake and had fun looking for stuff for my new Kindle. I’ve probably messed around with it more than I’ve actually read on it so far, but that’s because I think it’s so cool. I even found an ePub version of Songwords (a book of Cure song lyrics) that someone on my favorite Cure fansite put together and expanded to include all the songs that they’ve released since the book has come out. It was easy to convert to the Kindle format using a free program called calibre. I’ve already added a handful of books, and a game, to my Kindle.

This morning I looked for a case at Target but wasn’t liking any of them. I looked online yesterday too but the only ones I like seem way too expensive when the case is a third of the price of the device, like this one which I really love. For now I will stick to my “homemade” case – a manila bubble envelope. But I digress …

After we tortured the kids by making them eat breakfast first, they opened their presents. K, of course, knew she was getting a new camera. She also got an iTunes gift card and a Discover gift card since she’s a bit difficult to buy for. E got many presents, but instead of listing them you can check them out in the photos below. The only item not pictured was a Sansa Fuze 4GB MP3 Player that was delivered after I had wrapped all the other gifts. Also, some of the presents shown are from my parents since we help them with the shopping.

I started on the ham early which was a good thing since it took a heck of a lot longer than the directions indicated. I really like Target’s Market Pantry spiral honey ham. It’s a decent price and it tastes good, plus it’s not huge since there’s only four of us. I made the regular sides – mashed potatos, corn, green bean casserole, mac & cheese, stuffing and rolls.

The rest of the day was spent with the kids playing with their new toys and us doing the same. We also played a few games of Aggravation which we usually do when the kids are over. In all, a very nice low-key holiday.