It’s 88 degrees here with a heat index of 95. I do believe summer has come. Bleh. I think I’d like to take a dip in the pool again tonight. It’s definitely a good time to stay inside and not die of heat stroke. I’ll probably do my riding in the late evenings. And probably a lot of swimming 🙂 If I continue this kickboxing stuff with Ruthie, thank goodness that’s inside 😀

I got two “new” games for my PS2: Final Fantasy X and the most recent Tomb Raider (Angel of Darkness). I got quite frustrated, trying to beat Dooku in a lightsaber battle in Episode III, so I decided to expand the game library a little. I really like this PS2 thing, and I can’t believe I haven’t consistently console-gamed since the Atari 7800 🙂 Games have most certainly come a long way.

This weekend went by like the breeze that doesn’t exist right now. I blinked and it was gone *sigh* Definitely not fun, having weekends that are gone in a blink, but it was a pretty damn good one.

On Friday evening, Ruthie and I went over to friends of hers, Chris and Cheryl. They had some guy there demo-ing cookware. We all got a free meal out of the deal. Ryan Flynn was there, a guy I know from my Computer Engineering days. He’s actually going back to UAH to finish his bachelors quite soon. He’s quite the character. Fun at parties. You have to learn very quickly not to be very sensitive around him, and take pretty much everything he says with a grain of salt.

Today I am chilling with the folks, and I will be cooking chicken for all of them shortly. It’s been a while since I’ve made some, so this should defintiely be quite yummy.

It looks like it’s going to be raining all day today and into tomorrow. Typical Alabama spring, I guess. It’s not so bad, though. I plan on riding in it this afternoon, as long as no tornadoes are out to snatch me off my bike or lightning comes to fry me. One thing that riding with the guys from work has taught me is that I need to get back in shape on the bike. I’m definitely getting better, though–I can do 8 miles no sweat on paved terrain. I’m getting to the point where I can do 8 miles on the dirt/hills with no sweat, either. I still have a ways to go, though. I should never have given up biking in high school 🙂 When I can go a marathon on a bike paved or dirt with no sweat then I’ll know I’ve arrived to at the point of at least advanced n00b 🙂

This weekend was totally a very spiffy and relaxing one. I spent a good bit of time with Ruthie, saw Episode III for the 4th time with the bro, and got a PS2.

After seeing Ep III four times, I can say that I still haven’t found the Millenium Falcon in there–I saw on a forum that it was in there, in some spaceport scene, but I guess they sent everyone on a wild goose chase. hehe. It was still definitely worth seeing yet again, though.

I’m watching some movie on SciFi called Barb Wire. It has the guy who played Jango Fett and the clones in Episodes II and III. I think this is the only other thing I’ve seen him in. Pamela Anderson is the star. I think I won’t be missing much if I go to sleep after this posting. haha.

I got a PS2 today at CompUSA. The only reason I got it there was because of a free controller that came with it. I wasn’t able to eBay a deal for it, at least not one of any true significance (after shipping, and all). So, in the end, I got one the easy way. lol. I got Gran Turismo 4 and Episode III for it. Ruthie and I raced a bit tonight, and she beat me once out of about 9 times.

It’s all good, though, because she beat me at chess Saturday and tonight. I came fairly close to victory on Saturday, but she completely stomped me tonight. It was fun, though–I haven’t played a human in chess since high school.. It’s mostly been computers whooping the snot out of me. hehe.

So here I am, it’s 5am and I can’t ****ing sleep. There’s some damn redneck outside honking and carrying on because some girlfriend or something won’t come out to him. Things have been going on since at least 4am out there, if not before that, and it’s really starting to piss me off. It’s probably starting to piss off half of the damn complex, too. If he comes around again, I’ve put Madison Police Dept on speed dial. Looks like he did some damage to the car of whomever he is pissed at.

All I know is that he was in a dark color Firebird (too dark outside to tell the true color yet), and that he had really short hair (shaved). Probably not enough for a frickin conviction 😛

There goes my ****ing sleep.

Well, after the weekend, I think I’ve finally caught up on sleep I missed after the mid-week Star Wars excitement. I saw it again yesterday morning with Ruthie and a few of her kewlish friends, and it certainly did not lose any of its awesomeness the second time around. Windu’s death was, by far, the most disturbing of all of the Jedi deaths. I did get a little misty-eyed when Order 66 was carried out and so many Jedi were gunned down by the Clones.

I read an interesting article on the Injuries of Darth Vader. It looks like much of the content was updated for Ep III. It basically postulates exactly what his injuries were that made him have to don the big bad suit, and why he died at the end of Return of the Jedi.

Cubs actually gasp won against the White Sox today. They’re sure having their ups and downs this season, but so it is with every other team. They’re not the worst, but they’re not in first–typical.

I cancelled WoW Friday, in favor of Guild Wars. I get pretty much everything I get in WoW with Guild Wars, and a few friends are even playing. Right now, I’m a Level 7 Elemental/Ranger and I just got some very smashing armor. I still can’t believe it’s free to play.

I’m watching Journey to the Center of the Earth right now. It’s been years since I have seen it. They cleaned it up quite nicely for DVD. I think my favorite part, by far, is when they’re attacked by the gigantic iguanas 🙂

Well.. To expound on my last post after the viewing of what is probably the coolest movie in the saga..

The flick was frakking awesome. From beginning to end, it captured everything that I think most fans have wanted to see from the very inception of this prequel sleigh ride. There are probably some things that the huge nitpickers might find lacking in the film, but as a whole it was a very fulfilling 131 minutes.

What I liked, didn’t like (spoilers)

OMG!!!!!!!!!! 🙂

Episode III ticket is in-hand!!

This is the week of graduations; congrats to Matt & Ruthie who are graduating this week. It was a long journey for both of them. Matt’s off to Jacksonville for Residency and Ruthie’s sticking around here to work for NASA–I so proud of both of them 🙂 My bro graduates in August–soon enough, I suppose. One long summer semester.

It’s been a really nice end of the weekend. There was a good bit of rain around here yesterday, but it subsided fairly quickly and manifested itself into a bright and sunny Sunday. I was going to go riding yesterday, but the rain got in the way. Perhaps I will tomorrow.

My brother’s home from Chicago today. He spent a week there visiting cohorts and continuing his attempts to get a job at WGN Radio. Unfortunately, the Cubs weren’t there while he was. Ironically enough, his flight there and home went through D.C., and the Cubbies were playing the Nationals. He didn’t have any time to stop by for a hot dog, though.

I’m downloading a WWI mod to Battlefield 1942 called Battlefield 1918. It should be interesting. Of all mods to that game, though, nothing beats Desert Combat; there’s just something awesome about piloting an Apache.

I got the 1st season of Enterprise in the mail yesterday and swung by the office at the apartment to pick it up today. Despite its cancellation, it really turned out to be a great series; like every Star Trek before it, the show didn’t really fire up until 3rd season. Unfortunately, I think prevailing politics at UPN in conjunction with failing ratings took it down. If it’s the end of Trek, it’s alright–it’s had a good run. There must have been something redeeming about Star Trek, if it’s gone 700 episodes ever since The Cage.

I’ve had mixed feelings about the Enterprise finale. It was an Enterprise episode in the context of a TNG episode. I think in many ways, it detracts from what this series was; the discovery of what’s out there. Everything in this series was supposed to be viewed through the eyes of relative n00bs in interstellar space. I think that, while the show strayed beyond this much of the time, it should have ended in that context–that, and I think they should have shown Archer’s frakking speech during the Federation Charter signing 😛

Even with its demise, there’s still plenty of Sci-Fi out there. SG-1 will probably go a season or two more, and there’s Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica. I think that Sci-Fi on network television may be seeing its last days, though. Sci-Fi has a very core audience, which is certainly smaller than most other types of programming. Network television seems to excel at sitcoms and, more recently, reality television. In the end, this seems to be the developing niche for network television. Everything beyond, I think, will end up on the cable networks.

Episode III comes out this week!! Some friends of mine and my bro are going to go on Wednesday night at 12:01. This is going to be frelling awesome. I’m going to take a nap pretty much from the time I get home to about 10, I guess. I’ve been spoiled by the script, but I still can’t wait to see it all go down.