Omphaloskepsis  -

+ 0 - 0 | § ¶Another survey

Another survey I found from a friend of another Psi Phi member. Possibly more than you'd want to know about me. . . (more)

+ 0 - 0 | § ¶o/` Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way... o/`

I got a lot of good loot for Christmas. Among the items:

• Lego sets: Mini MTT, Mini AT-ST & Snowspeeder, Aragog in the Dark Forest, and Jabba's Palace. I've assembled the MTT, AT-ST, and Snowspeeder; they're pretty cool. I already have Aragog and Jabba's Palace, so I may try to exchange them for another item.
• DVDs: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Ghostbusters/Ghostbusters II two-pack, Smallville Season 1, and Steven Spielberg Presents Taken. I already had a copy of POTC because it was in my Amazon.com Gold Box and I bought it, but I forgot to remove it from my Wish List. Oops! I've watched the first four episodes of Smallville now, and I'm really enjoying it. (I had previously watched the pilot episode and the occasional other episode, but since Smallville was scheduled opposite 24 its first two seasons, and is now scheduled opposite Star Trek: Enterprise, I don't get the chance to watch it regularly.
• CDs: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Limited Edition Soundtrack and Dido: Life for Rent. The TROTK Limited Edition soundtrack includes a bonus DVD that includes a "supertrailer" (basically: the entire story of the TLOTR movies in about ten minutes), and several features about the scoring of the movies, all of which I watched. I'm looking forward to listening to the score, particularly the songs performed by Billy Boyd (from the Faramir scene) and Viggo Mortensen (from near the end of the movie).
• Games: The Lord of the Rings Monopoly: Trilogy Edition and The Simpsons Chess.
• Food: Giant candy cane, chocolate-covered cherry cordials, and Planters Peanuts 3-pack (1 pack of honey roasted peanuts, 1 pack of sweet and crunchy peanuts (kind of like French burnt peanuts, but different), and 1 pack of cocktail peanuts)
• Cards: two
• Gift certificates/cards: Barnes & Noble, Culver's, Wal*Mart

Technically, a few of the above were belated birthday presents, but since I got them this week, I'll count them here. :-)

davidh

+ 0 - 0 | § ¶Wacky CSI coincidence

Friday night at 9pm, I was flipping through the channels because the Whose Line episode on the Family Channel was a repeat from it seems like less than a week ago and I had no other television plans between JAG and the local news. I found a repeat of CSI:CSI on TNN, um, I mean Spike TV: Television for Women (or so their flowery logo would lead you to believe).

The episode was from the first season, which I've seen very few episodes of, and was entitled "Face Lift", about a murder that at first appears to be spontaneous human combustion. Through the course of the investigation, they discover what really happened, and there are a few interesting character twists. When the episode finished, there was a bit of a loose end with some of the bad guys. (I don't want to get into exactly what the loose end is, as it would be a spoiler for some of the twists in the episode.)

Then on Saturday, I went to my CSI:CSI Season 2 DVD set and started in on the third disc. I had in previous weeks watched all eight episodes on the first two discs, so I was ready to begin the ninth episode. So I press play on "And Then There Were None", and what do I find but a sequel to the episode I had watched a day before! CSI doesn't do a lot of sequels, other than the character arcs among the main cast members, so for me to watch two episodes I've never seen before on consecutive days, one in the normal Spike rotation, one that was the next one in my DVD collection, was a pretty amusing coincidence.

davidh

+ 0 - 0 | § ¶Edoras: the Golden Hall

I recently finished assembling the TLOTR: Edoras: The Golden Hall Puzz3D, which I received for my birthday. It was quite challenging, but very fun.

The biggest challenge came after I had finished assembling each of the flat sections and was preparing to assemble them all. Normally, other than for small, simple Puzz3D's, I use the instruction sheet to show me where each piece goes--a very useful thing when there are several similarly-shaped and -decorated sections which each fit together in multiple ways, such as the stone walls on each side of the steps. I had looked at the sheet when I first opened the box, but when it came time to start the assembling the completed sections, the instruction sheet was nowhere to be found. I searched high and low, looked through stacks of paper nearby, and checked under couches and tables. But after a couple days of looking, off and on, I still couldn't find it, so I prepared myself for my first attempt at assembling a major project without the instructions.

As I got into the work, though, (more)