thisischris.com -- This is Chris dot Com -- the website of Christopher Grant Harris

Last night for some reason I had a tonne of kinetic energy when bedtime rolled around. I was practically bouncing off the walls. I had the feeling like there was something super-productive I needed to be doing, but of course there wasn't; I was done with everything for the day.

Carrie & I both had trouble falling asleep. We watched the entire final disc of Freaks and Geeks. To paraphrase a girl in the last episode, I kinda wish I hadn't seen all of the episodes just so that I would be able to see some episodes for the first time.

When I eventually fell asleep that night I had really stressful dreams. They weren't bad so much (except the part where the PT Cruiser full of gangsters exploded... twice), they were just very labor intensive. I had to give a complicated speech/presentation. I was going to do something on physics, but I didn't have enough time to prepare, so instead I decided it would be a good idea to do a 30-Minute Meals type of thing where I prepare a picnic. Except for a half-hour before the presentation I didn't have anything except for sliced ham and sliced cheese.

Also, there were some gangsters (40s-style). One of them walked with green-and-white plastic crutches, except one of the crutches was actually a disguised machine gun. I'd seen this movie before, so I knew that at the end of it like eight guys are piled into a PT Cruiser like the Ant Hill Mob from The Perils of Penelope Pitstop:

The Cruiser then explodes. So I knew enough not to get into the Cruiser when I saw eight guys piled into it. I stood behind a lamp post about three feet away when the explosion happened and I was fine.

This morning Gwyn sent me a link to this really cool necklace:

I've always said I kinda wanted to get into glass beadmaking (either glass or PMC, actually), just so I could make Pac-Man beads. Looks like someone beat me to the punch!

Monday, February 27, 2006

All-Day Instruction

Yesterday (Sunday) Carrie had to teach two classes back-to-back. I took her to work at 8:00 in the AM, then spent the rest of the morning on teh intarweb and cleaning the house (which mostly involved setting Roomba loose in the living room).

Around 12:00 I settled down with Animal Crossing and rather promptly fell asleep with the stylus in my hand. I slept for about 20 minutes before waking up and putting on The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. Fools Play peoples came over shortly thereafter and we had practice, which included taking photos of the new recurring characters that appeared on Saturday...

Corcoran and Son
Yes, Taisha was at practice as well! We mostly practiced an up-coming format. It was thankfully a rather lazy practice.

At the end of practice Geoff got out his laptop and emailed me a new exerpt of Take on the Toughies. Also some early conceptual art of the characters. He emailed it to me from my dining room table, thanks to my awexome wireless router! Ve'y cool.

When Carrie finally got home from her class after 6:00, she said almost immediately, "Can we go to the Parkway?"

To which I enthusiastically replied, "Sure!"

Carrie was exhausted from teaching all day and needed to go out. We also called Steph and had her come down and meet us so Carrie could get some "girlfriend time" (we also called Christine, but she was unavailable). It was fun the three of us sitting around in the Parkway (which has all-new tables that are really nice). I got the hamburger dip and a cider. Yumz.

We came home and there was really nothing on TV, so we watched the finale of Dancing with the Stars and were really disappointed that Stacy didn't win. Meh. Oh, well. Carrie went to bed at 10:00, and even though I wasn't nearly as tired as she was, I went as well because I didn't have anything else to do that evening. So why not call it a night?

Sunday, February 26, 2006

She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountains

Yesterday (Saturday) Carrie & I spent much of the day cleaning up after Friday's par-tay. We each did a couple loads of dishes and what-not.

Around noontime we went to the Kickstand Cafe so Carrie could look over the back room and make plans. See, that's where Linnea's baby shower is next Sunday. I'd never actually been in the back room at Kickstand. It was kinda cute, but pretty shabby. Not very well-kept.

For foods I just ate leftovers all the live-long day. Cornbread (Linnea's), Reubens, hoagee, and potato-leek soup. It all had a taste. A good taste.

Taisha was able to come across the mountains this weekend and so performed Fools Play: A Cacophony of Endings with us. It was a pretty crazy show; lots of energy, not too terribly much in the way of focus. But entertainment was had.

Afterwards a whole bunches of people went to the Rib Eye, but we had to sit at like four different tables. And the bill took forevah to show up.

Yesterday was the first day of spring in our Animal Crossing town.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Open Invitation

Yesterday (Friday) Chris Fantz came over in the morning and we worked out the final order of the photos for his new website. Ve'y cool.

In the middle part of the day Carrie went shopping, first to buy supplies for the evening (though she also bought me some goodies, like a giant hoagee), and second with Linnea to look at baby stuff some more (she was good and refrained from buying stuff during the second trip).

After I finished up my work in the afternoon I helped Carrie clean up the house. She sent me to the store around 6:00 becuase she'd accidentally bought shredded soy cheese instead of real cheese. So I went to Neighborhood Market and got the real stuffis.

Originally we were just gonna have Cat and Heather over, but during the course of the week more and more people ended up being invited, until by the time last night rolled around it was a good-sized, open-invitation party. For the party I made reuben sammitches, which are very good and kind of my specialty sammitch now. I grilled 'em up good and put them in the oven to keep warm. Carrie made tuna melts and a huge pot of potato-leek soup.

People started trickling in around 6:30, and Brandy called me shortly thereafter, so I ducked into the bedroom and talked with her for quite a while. I wish she could have come to the party! I miss her something fierce. So it was good to talk to her.

Eventually I rejoined the party, which consisted of (let's see if'n I can remember everybody):

Cat & Chris Gouker
Heather & Chris Fantz
Christine & Lawrence
The whole Tarbet Clan:
- Linnea
- JC
- Lena
Nyki & Casey
Melissa & Travis
Kate Molly & Austin(!!!)

And Steph stopped by with her friend Kate a while later, but just for a few minutes (they were just passing through).

A highlight of the night was the news that Kate Molly & Austin are moving back to the Seattle-Tacoma area! Woot! That's really cool. Now if we could just get Gretchen, Erin, and Brandy to move back, and convince Nicole not to move to Oregon...

Also fun was playing the ukulele while Lena played a tiny synthesizer.

All-in-all it was a very fun night.

Not so fun was the huge pile of dishes everyone left in their wake. Boy, I'm kinda sick of my life being dominated by piles of dirty dishes, but it sure does seem to happen often!

Friday, February 24, 2006

Time

This is a really cool, well, not experiment exactly. Chronicle? Yeah, chronicle.

Robot & Bird

Yesterday (Thursday) I think I completely finished up one of my clients' websites, Accents by Joni. Her site was kind of crazy, because I had the design done a month ago, and all of the pages created shortly thereafter. And between then and now every single techincal thing that could have possibly gone wrong, did go wrong. I've never talked with technical support people so much in my life! It was crazy. It was like she kept rolling critical failure after critical failure.

I also almost finished up the 2006 PSBF stuff. I should finish that today. It was a split-shift day, so after I picked up Carrie and had lunch with her I showered (not until 1:30 in the PM—the joys of working from home), worked for a couple more hours, and then went to Target and the bank. I was going to Target to buy some daytime allergy medicine. Carrie also wanted me to pick up some peanut butter crackers 'cause they're absurdly cheap there. I only remembered to get one of the items. Guess which one!

I was kinda pissed at myself. I mean, I only had two things on my list, and yet I still only managed to remember one of them! I think I get distracted too easily sometimes. Either that or I think too far ahead and forget what I'm supposed to be doing now.

I swung by the bank and deposited the check from Precious Maille, then came back home and worked a little bit more and hung out with Carrie.

I made omelettes for din-dins, but they turned out more like scrambles because for some reason they both just disintigrated when I tried to flip them. I'd made an omelette for breakfast and I didn't have that problem, so I'm not sur what was going on. Why wouldn't the omelettes flip? Why oh why? The scrambles were still tasty, though.

Last night I experimented with drawing something entirely in Photoshop. I made a rough sketch first and scanned it in, but everything you see in the drawing below was done digitally:

I think it looks purdy goot!

The evening was also when I finished up Accents by Joni and washed a small handful of dishes. We're being really good about keeping on top of the dishes so as they don't pile up too much. We'll see how well we do after tonight, when a whole bunch of Bead Babes are comin' over to eat foodstuffs.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Booooooring

These last few days have been, frankly, rather boring. When the most exciting thing in your day is when you stick a new wick in a candle, then, yeah, I think you can say that your life is pretty boring right now.

I know it could be worse. My life could be actively bad. But right now it's fallen into the routine of take Carrie to work, get her coffee, come home, write in this blog, do my daily grind, have breakfast, work for a couple of hours, play Animal Crossing and eat lunch, pick Carrie up for lunch (or bring her home on split-shift days), work some more hours in the afternoon, have dinner (and take Carrie back to the store on split-shift days), then try to find something to do during the evening so as to not be completely bored (usually involves reading interesting web sites—last night it was this one), then going to bed.

The boring routine-ness of my days coupled with the fact that I've been really tired for no reason whatsoever is making me a little frustrated. Frustrated? Maybe stir-crazy is the right word. Heck, did you know that on Monday I never stepped a single foot outside of my house?

I love working from home, don't get me wrong, but sometimes it's nice to talk to see more people than just Carrie (and the people at Starbucks) during the course of the day. I know that if I were working in a job around people that I'd start going crazy in a couple of months, like what happened at Cobalt.

So, like I said, I know my life could be worse. My life doesn't suck right now. It's just... boring.

Well, tomorrow night a whole bunch of Bead Babes are coming over, so that'll be nice (the company will be nice, but not the dirty dishes they leave in their wake).

My Stubborn Dream People

Last night (Wednesday night) I had a crazy dream. One of my movie dreams, where I dream basically an entire film. This time I was actually in the dream, though, and it kinda played havok with my dream people because they didn't know how to react to what I was doing in the movie's story. So they mostly did nothing. Let me explain.

The movie was a slasher-style horror movie. It took place in a very depressing, run-down semi-rural town with some woods and fields around it. It was always gray, and either on the verge of raining or actually raining. You had the feeling that all of the houses were just this side of rotting and falling down. And there was someone who was seeking revenge for some past wrong committed by the town (a-la Freddy). In order to disguise himself he dressed up...

...as a goblin.

And I don't mean he put on a goblin mask. He had a full latex mask and upper bodysuit. It was sickly yellowish/white.

Now let me explain what I was talking about earlier. The movie was full (and I mean FULL) of typical horror movie characters. They would always react in their typical horror movie ways. Thing is, I'm pretty familair with horror movies, so I was always trying to get these characters to react in ways that would "break their programming" so to speak. But they wouldn't. No matter what.

Here are two examples: At one point I was in a car with a slightly nerdish teenaged character (seemingly played by a young Sean Astin), and the movie's requisite grumpy, skeptical old man who refuses to believe "those damned kids and their crazy stories" (seemingly played by my own dad). At this point I had manipulated events suitably enough so that I knew another old man character was going to be targeted by the goblin killer, so I tricked the skeptical old man to drive us to his street. As soon as we got there, the goblin killer drove up in a Volvo (boxy but good), in full costume, got out in plain sight of us brandishing a huge knife, and started walking up the street towards his victim's house.

"I think we should call the police," I rationally said.

At this point the skeptical old man started in on a tirade about how us crazy kids are always making up crazy stories, even though he had seen the goblin killer with his own two eyes. It didn't matter. This character's role in the film was to be a skeptical old man and, by god, he was going to be skeptical no matter what.

At one point during the film I had to call 911 myself, knowing that if a teenager calls 911 and starts telling stories about a goblin killer he's likely (in a horror movie) to get laughed right off the phone and chided for making prank calls to 911. So instead of talking about a goblin killer, I made up an insanely plausible reason why I would need police to come to my aid (I don't remember exactly what it was, but it made no mention of a ~~ghostface~~ goblin killer; I think I said something to the effect that there was a domestic dispute going on, and the guy was holding a big knife and threatening to kill the girl). But the 911 operator reacted exactly as if I had rambled on about a goblin killer, and basically said, "yeah, right, kid." And hung up on me.

I woke up before the movie ended, unfortunately. But then I rolled over, fell back asleep, and started dreaming about the sequel to the film, also starring me and Sean Astin. It took place mostly in a carnival-type setting, though there was also a train station. I don't remember many of the events, except for a chase involving an escalator.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Burning Away the Scent of Fish

Yesterday (Tuesday) I dropped Carrie off at work and then went to get her coffee, as is the way of such things. I parked the car and as I got out I noticed someone standing down the sidwalk a ways off. He had a dog. His back looked really familiar. Looked like J.C. Tarbet.

And so it was. In fact, Linnea & Lena were with him. So I chatted with them for a brief moment and met their new dog before continuing with the coffee delivery.

Carrie had a split-shift so I picked her up around 12:30 then had a cheese enchilada for lunch. She made jewelry and I hung out with her (playing Animal Crossing) until about 2:00, when I went back to work and worked for the rest of the afternoon.

But then I started to get really, really sleepy and I had to crash on the couch for a while. It's rather upsetting; for months I've been doing fine, not needing to nap in the middle of the day or anything. But these last few weeks I've just felt pooped in the afternoon.

Anyway, I cooked up a gigantic salmon steak for din-dins and ate it with some leftover carrots and cabbage from the day before. I took Carrie back to work then, and she made sure to tell me to light some stinkum candles so that the house wouldn't smell like fish when she came back from class.

So I did. Both pumpkin-scented stinkum candles were burnt pretty far down, so the wicks were mostly useless. So I got clever: I heated the wax so that it formed a puddle in the bottom of the each candle, then I got out some tea lights and removed their wicks (they're the kind that have the wicks attached to a small aluminum disc at the base of the candle). I submerged this disc in the runny wax and let it harden up. Voila! New wicks!

I know I kick ass. You don't have to tell me.

Anyway, I did some fruitless sketching in the evening after being inspired by looking at some Cal Slayton stuff. I figure I should be able to draw as well as he can, but for some reason I'm having troubles right now. So I watched X2: X-Men United on the TV.

Carrie was driven home by Nicole, and we basically went to bed as soon as she got in.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Dishes Are Done, Man.

Yesterday (Monday) Carrie had the day off. Seeing as how she didn't have to get up early to go to work, she slept in a bit. Which meant that I did, too, even though I did have work to do.

And work to do I did. I actually worked quite a bit during the day, while Carrie worked in the kitchen, ~~the proper place for a womens~~ beating up the pile of dirty dishes with punches of soapy water! Also, she napped a bit.

After almost all dirty dishes were gone, she made dinner, which consisted of her dirtying a whole bunch of dishes. But it was a really good dinner—fish, cabbage with (fake) bacon, roasted carrots with a olive oil/lemon glaze, and mashed potatoes. You know, a REAL dinner.

Fortunately I was able to wash all the newly-dirtied dishes after dinner before bed. So I think right now there are maybe two dirty dishes in the whole house, which is, sadly, something of an unusual event around here.

Monday, February 20, 2006

The First-Ever Animated Film

Animation (filmed animation, that is) is going to be 100 years old on April 6th, which was the date in 1906 when Humorous Phases of Funny Faces was made. You can watch it now and marvel at what's happened in the last century.

You're a Handsome Devil... What's Your Name?

There was no practice on Sunday, as I mentioned in yesterday's post. So instead Carrie & I spent a good deal of time a-cleaning up around this pigsty. Okay, okay, it really isn't bad here, but tidying up and letting Roomba run around cain't nevah hurt!

I went to Paper Zone in the morning to print out the invitations I worked up for Babe Lehrer's book signing. Paper Zone doesn't open until 11:00, and I got there about 15 minutes early, so I went next door to Target and wandered around for a bit. They have really, really cool dressy clothes at Target right now. That whole Merona line or whatever it's called. It's very tempting, but I have better stuff than clothes to spend money on (I know a couple of women who would kill me for saying that), like food and shelter.

Between about 5:00 and 6:00 I worked on Chris Fantz's site, which is now almost done and is pretty cool-looking, if I may brag. Carrie then went into the store with Nyki to do that cleaning thing that has to be done every weekend (but not by Carrie every weekend; there's a rotating schedule where eventually every Bead Babe ends up cleaning one weekend).

While she was gone I re-worked my links page, putting something called a "blogroll" into the right-hand column to make it easier for me to visit people's blogs. If I know you, and you have a blog, and you're not in that list, let me know. Unless you have a MySpace blog, because those don't actually have real-world URLs to which I can link.

Carrie called me around 8:00 to say that Nyki was coming back home with her and to put pizzas in the oven. So I cooked up a couple of Trader Joe's pizzas, and Nyki came over. We all watched Jay and Silent Bob Do Degrassi, because it turns out that Carrie & Nyki share almost exactly the same tastes in entertainment. "It's like we're the same, but different," said Carrie.

Oh, and some people who haven't seen me yet were wondering what I looked like with only the goatee, so I took this photo of myself (I'm looking kind of puffy for some reason):

You're a Handsome Devil... What's Your Name?
As you can see, my cheeks and neck are already stubbling up, and this photo was taken only about 30 hours after the shave. I'll have the full beard back by this weekend no doubt, no worries.

Oh, and when I went to bed I was really itchy for some reason. My left elbow especially. When I rolled up my sleeve I noticed that something had bit me. How did I know? Because there was a raised white bump of skin about the size of a penny. And several smaller white bumps around it. How's that for allergies!

Sunday, February 19, 2006

76 152 Suggestions

Yesterday (Saturday) Carrie had to work nearly the whole day! Boo to that, says I! I didn't get very much done during the day, and had to leave early to get down to Fools Play early to practice our new format again.

When I was shaving before heading down I couldn't get the two halves of my beard (left and right) to match up, so I shaved off everything except for the goatee and attached moustache. I went and picked up Carrie before I left, and she was very startled by it.

I wonder how many audience members actually noticed?

Yes, so I got to Fools Play early, but late for being early by about ten minutes. We ran through most of the new format: 76 Suggestions. While doing this, we discovered that the format was now shockingly easy for us to do.

We didn't even bother finishing through the whole run-through. Mike & I went and bought sammitches at that sub place in Oly that's right across the street from a Subway, but is still doing booming business. I got a six-inch pastrami, hold the lettuce, and it was vey tasty. We stopped by Safeway on the way back to Studio 321 to pick up some Coke for poor sicky Geoffs. Yes, Geoffs performed even though he wasn't feeling very well at all. And he did a bang-up jorb.

In fact, we all did. The 76 Suggestions format was a rollicking good time, and the audience was totally into it despite it being very audience-unfriendly. We only ever interact with the audience at the very, very beginning of the show. But y'know, now that I think about it, a lot of 76 Suggestions is monologues where we talk directly to the audience, so I think that probably helped draw them in some more.

The show took a while to clean up after due to the high volume of litter it produced. I was the only Fool to go out afterwards, due to Geoffs feeling blah and Mike having to go home and pack. Pack for what? Why, to visit Taisha across the mountains. Which means no Fools Play practice today, so I get to actually hang out with my wife this weekend! Hoo-rah!

Anyway, everybody else went out to the Rib Eye after the show, including regular audience member Cassie, down from college at Western, me own Alma-Mader. She's also in the art department, so we talked briefly about that, but I'm astonished at how little I actually remember! Well, I remember a lot, but no actual names of teachers except for "Elsie."

After the bills came I paid and went to the bathroom, and when I came out everyone had abandoned me except for Sandy & Mathias! Boo to that, says I! I drove home where Carrie was already asleep, and got a song from K.K. Slider for each of us before going to sleep myself. I had for some reason a bit of a difficult time falling asleep, but eventually prevailed.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Mirriam's New Pad

Yesterday (Friday) almost every single one of my active clients had work for me to do. it was very interesting, and a quite various work day.

I went to the bonk and transferred some more money into my account, as well as deposited the check that Chris Fantz dropped off here on Wednesday. The girl behind the counter almost habitually reached for the second deposit, because usually I deposit one of Carrie's checks, too, at the same time I deposit stuff into my account.

I cut about two inches off of my hair! I bet no one would even notice if I didn't say anything. But it seems a lot healthier now. Good thing? Mais oui.

After work Carrie & I went to Target to buy a housewarming present for Mirriam. She just moved into the same building/complex where Geoff, Nyki, and Lawrence (and probably a few other people I know) live. We settled on buying her some bamboo and a gift card so she could get soemthing cool for the new place. We then went to Metropolitan Market and bought that garlic bread that comes in the foil bag. I likes that stuffis. We then went home, where I worked for another hour before we headed out again.

Right when we were heading out the door, though, Carrie got called into work, though, so she dropped me off there. Cat was waiting for her Chris downstairs, so she let me in. The building has a really cool old-school elevator in it, the kind with the sliding metal-mesh door. Heather and her Chris were already upstairs making foodstuffs. Heather is a goot cook. She made salad (which I couldn't eat, but had a really kickass home-made dressing) and spaghetti.

Carrie eventually showed up just after 8:00, by which time Cat's Chris had fallen fast asleep. He has a much more powerful version of my superhero ability to "fall asleep in any moving vehicle." He has the ability to "fall asleep at any time in any place."

Those of us who were awake watched Equilibrium. I like that movie, but don't own it yet because nobody has bought it for me off of my Amazon Wish List. Hint-freakin'-hint.

-Edit- it turns out that someone did purchase Equilibrium off of my wish list. But I never received it. Also Busdriver's Temporary Forever and Victor Wooten's A Show of Hands (the latter of which I got myself recently). It seems they were bought months ago. Hmm... a mystery! We'd better play a song about it! Solvers, go! I put the un-received items back into my wish list proper.

Friday, February 17, 2006

If You're Going Out, Can I Eat Your Fish?

The last couple of nights Carrie has gone out with Bead Babes (with Missa to Parkway on Wednesday, and with a whole bunch of Babes to Asado last night), leaving me alone to my devices. Fortunately a lot of Mythbusters was on the TV both nights, so that took up a lot of my time. Also, last night I drew a picture of Wonder Woman, on account of I'd never drawn one of her before. Go figure.

I went out yesterday (Thursday) during the day to Fred Meyer's to buy the essentials: cat food, litter, sammitch baggies, milk. I also picked up a big salmon fillet to make for dinner.

But Carrie & I ate too much cake in the later afternoon, so by the time dinner rolled around we weren't anywhere near hungry. So after I took her back to class I cooked up a piece of Salmon for myself, and cut another piece to make for her when she got back. After class she called to tell me she was going out. Then I called her right back.

"Hey," I said, "if you're going out, can I eat your fish?"

She laughed and gave me the okay, so I cooked hers up and at it as well. When she eventually came home she noted how the house smelled very strongly of cooked fish. Well, no wonder!

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Hand-Made Hearts!

Yesterday (Tuesday) was, of course, Valentine's Day. Here's a shocker: I'm a guy (that part's not the shocker... well, maybe to some people) who really likes Valentine's Day. Why? Because it's a day I get to show off.

Yesterday I hand-made cute little paper cut-out valentines for each of the Bead Factory girls who were working and hand delivered them.

That's right. I'm that guy who makes other guys look bad. I know people don't need a special day as an excuse to do something nice for the ladies, but if it's there why not take advantage of it?

And it turns out I wasn't the only one; Chris Fantz also stopped by the store and dropped off a daffodil for each of the ladies there. See? Hmm... maybe it's only people named Chris who can be so good to the ladies. Well, considering that three of the Bead Babes are married to guys named Chris, there might be something about that name...

After work Carrie & I drove up to her folks' house and dropped off flowers and chocolates, and then went to Grandma K's and dropped off flowers and a cookie. She was eating in the dining room, so we went down there and surprised her after dropping the stuff off in her room. She seemed very happy, and actually called us after she was done eating to thank us.

I cooked dinner for Carrie. It was mahi-mahi steaks with a lemon-garlic-parsley tahini sauce. When I was making the sauce (from scratch... well, I didn't grind up the sesame seeds myself, but I combined all the ingredients) it didn't actually taste very good. It turns out that was because it was missing an essential ingredient: the fish itself. It tasted really good scooped all over the fish.

After dinner I broke out the Japanese plum wine that Sandy & Mathias had given us a couple of years ago. We mixed it with sparkling wine, and it tasted rather tasty.

It was a good, low-key Valentine's day. Carrie & I will probably go out celebrating a little bit more once she's not quite so sicky (although she did feel a lot better yesterday than she did Monday).

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

The Headache Battles

Yesterday I fought two rounds with a nasty headache. It whipped me the first round, but I got the drop on it in the second round, so we're tied 1 to 1.

The first round took place during the first half of the day. Carrie is feeling sicky, so she only worked at work for a couple of hours and then brought work home. Some lady bought tons and tonnes of beads and wanted 30 bracelets made out of them. And it was a rush job. So Carrie luckily was able to sit on the couch in pajama pants and watch TV while making bracelets all (mostly) day. It's nice to work from home!

The headache came on so slowly that I didn't even really notice it until it was too late. I was the proverbial frog in the proverbial pot of slowly boiling proverbial water. I took a couple of Tylenol and tried to let them take effect, but I mostly got my ass kicked around like a ragdoll for a couple of hours.

In the early afternoon, and despite the headache, I went to the Fred Meyer bank to swap some moneys to my bank account, on account of my bank account is how we pay bills.

Carrie did have to go back to work at the store for a little bit in the later afternoon. And for the first time in quite a long, long time I was unable to keep my eyes open during daylight hours, and fell a-sleepy on the couch until Carrie returned.

I made pizzas for din-dins (by which I mean I unpackaged the pre-made pizzas and put them in the oven), and didn't really do much of anything in the evening. Kinda dinked around teh intarweb and flipped around channels. I put some dishes in the sink to soak, and then the headache came back for round 2.

This time I was ready, though, and immediately took some Tylenol and then lay down on the bed until it went away. It didn't take very much time at all, compared to the severity of the hurt. Take that, headache! I bashed your brains in! Tombstone piledriver!

After the headache retreated to its corner to have its wounds tended to, I washed the dishes. Umm... not exactly a good reward, I guess.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Archie's Diner for Breakfast

I'm going to back up just a little bit. Saturday night after Fools Play, the gang from Northwest Diner Blog were talking about the Diner they were going to have breakfast at on Sunday morning. They said something that sounded familiar, so I asked them to repeat it.

"Archie's Diner," Grits said. "In Browns Point."

"I've been there!" I exclaimed.

On a couple of occassions, actually. You see, Archie's Diner is just down the hill from Carrie's folks' house. Carrie went there many times in her childhood.

So it transpired that yesterday (Sunday) Carrie, Ryan, and I all drove up to Browns Point and had breakfast at Archie's Diner with the gang from Northwest Diner Blog. We all six of us crowded around a table meant for four. I had the Monte Cristo omelette, which was rather tasty, although the grated cheese seemed to come from one of those bags of grated cheese you buy in the supermarket. They're usually hanging on a rack above the real cheese.

Carrie, Ryan, and I came back to the house here and then Ryan drove off to his Grandma's birthday party. Carrie & I cleaned for a bit before Fools Play practice, during which we ran completely through our new, exciting format. It's very, very different from anything else we do, so you should really see the show this Saturday (the 18th).

After practice Carrie went to the store to celebrate the half-dozen Bead Factory birthdays that occur during February, including store co-owner Mark. Earlier in the day I created a free babysitting coupon for Carrie to put into his card, and it had a drawing of us on it.

While Carrie was out partying it up, I... um... what did I do again? Hmm... I talked to Brandy on the phone for a bit (she was in the middle of doing quantitative reasoning homework, and also in the middle of that HUGE Nor'easter). I ate an enchilada. I played much Animal Crossing and watched some of Bulletproof Monk (not very good, although I'm pretty sure that Jamie King is my new celebrity crush).

Carrie came home after 9:00 and went pretty much straight to bed, due to the fact that she was feeling a little sicky. Boo! I helped her, then I created a couple of this week's ANGRY BEEF sightings before I, too, went to bed around 11:00 and put on the first disc of Buffy season 5. One of my two favorite seasons!

Sunday, February 12, 2006

He Followed Me Home

Yesterday (Saturday) I went in the morning to the post office, which was horrible because they were short-staffed and the two people were, well to repeat myself, horrible. I also mailed something. Something secret... While there I met a kid named Nicholas. And his brother Legolas.

That poor, poor kid.

Anyway, from there I went and deposit Carrie's paycheck at the Fred Meyer bank and also bought Goldfish Crackers. I was gwine t'get some money out of Carrie's account and put it in mine own for to the paying of the bills, but I forgot to bring Carrie's debit card with me so I couldn't withdraw monies from her account (seeing as how I'm not on her account, the only way to get money from it is at an ATM). Meh. I'll do it monday.

Is it weird that we've been married a year and a half (almost) and still don't have a joint checking account yet? I think it might be...

Anyway, the Lareau kids came over in the afternoon and were their usual selves. We all four played Mario Kart DS vs each other, which was pretty cool. I won, of course.

They were their usual selves, except they behaved a little bit better when Carrie put on The Apprentice, because they all love that Donald show, especially Trevor.

Melissa came by later in the afternoon and she and Carrie took the kids to Point Defiance Park. I got ready for Fools Play and then I left for Fools Play and then I arrived at Fools Play.

I forgot to bring the cash box with me, though, so I had to run up to Safeway and buy a Gatorade with my debit card so I could get cash back. The show was pretty funny, kind of sloppy in places, and maybe a little long. It was the Valentine's Day Special, and in the end Jake won a "date" with Geoff, which was acted out live on stage! They went to the giant Slip-and-Slide.

Ryan Roullard came to the show, which was cool, and afterwards he followed me home and crashed on my couch on account of he didn't want to have to drive all the way the heck back up to Bellingham. I understand that.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Opening Ceremonies

Yesterday (Friday) was pretty much a day like any other. Carrie worked a full day, I worked mostly a full day. She came home for lunch; I ate sushi. I read a detailed synopsis of Crisis on Infinite Earths.

After work, though, Carrie & I went over to Cat's place, where Heather was already there making guacamole. Cat made fixin's for turkey tacos, and we four sat around and enjoyed them while Cat & Carrie filled out invitations for their respective showers—Cat for a wedding shower for her friend Erin, and Carrie for Linnea's baby shower.

The real star of the night, though, was the opening ceremonies of the 2006 Turin Olympics. Man-o-man. That was some futzed up shiznit.

It started out pretty cool, with a guy bashing a gigantic hammer into an even more gigantic anvil, with 30-foot flames shooting out of it with each hit. But then there were weirdly choreographed dancers who at one point formed a giant, beating heart. That was weird. And then there were inline skaters with fire shooting out the backs of their heads. Again, kinda weird, but a little more cool.

But then came the bubbleheads—people wearing six-foot balloons on their heads (supposed to represent snow). It was weird, but it was really cool. They looked like Kodama.

Then there was the strange occurrance of statues of cows being wheeled around as people dressed as cows waltzed. That was very, very strange. Also, throughout most of this, there were people doing synchronized swimming moves but not in a pool. They were in a recessed area (where the athletes ended up sitting).

Then came the best part of the whole danged show: the ski jumper. A whole mess of people came out and formed the shape of a skier (when seen from above). Then the skier actually reached its arm up and pulled down its visor. The formation movement was flawless. Then the skier went down a ski ramp and up over a jump, landing perfectly. It was flawlessly done, and it was absolutely spectacular. Probably the best crowd-of-people-forming-something I've ever seen (unless you count the ad for Super Mario Bros 3), because the something that they formed actually moved around and was animated. Really cool. I can't find a picture of it, unfortunately.

The parade of nations was the parade of nations, the same thing it is every Olympics.

After that, though, was some cool stuff, including a gigantic book of Dante's Divine Comedy, from which someone read a passage. That was pretty cool. But then there was a weird, long sequence that involved people dressed up in renaissance/baroque outfits having a sumptuous banquet, which ended when a half-dozen gigantic Madame Bon-Bons started circling them and laughing maniacally.

It was getting really late by this point, so Carrie & I went home and turned on the Opening Ceremonies in the bedroom. We were witness to people in crazy red-and-white outfits with giant mohawks riding around in motorcycle/chariots.

Woo! Then a Ferrari was assembled and did doughnuts on the stadium floor. That was pretty funny.

Then there wer boring speeches, so I went bathwoom. After that, though, was the lighting of the torch. That was actually pretty cool; there have been some cool torch lightings in the last decade or so; there was the one where the person lit a big ball on fire, and it flew up a line and into the cauldron to light it; there was Muhammed Ali lighting it; there was the one where the torch light an arrowhead on fire, and an archer shot it into the cauldron to light it. In this one an Italian ski legend lady brought the torch to the center of the arena where she lit this little archway, and then firepots shot off all over the place, leading up into the cauldron (which is a really cool series of four twisted pipes). I liked it.

The balloon heads were cool, and the giant book was cool, and all the fire was cool. And there were giant alps-style horns at one point, even! But I coulda done without the dancing cows and the giant laughing baroque women.

Friday, February 10, 2006

The Few, the Foodless

Yesterday was one of the few Thursdays that Carrie did not teach class in the evening. So she instead worked a full 8-hour day, 8:30 to 4:30.

We haven't gone grocery shopping for two weeks, so we don't have very much in the way of edible food in the house. We don't have any cheese, really. I had a couple of eggs for breakfast, but we're running low on those, too.

So for lunch I drove to the Bead Factory and then Carrie & I walked to E-9. She had a danged quesadilla and I had a classic club sammitch. I only ate half of it there and took the rest home.

After work Carrie went with Linnea to register for baby stuff at Babies 'R' Us. While she was doing that I ate the other two triangles of my club sammitch. She called on the way home and asked if I wanted to go to Trader Joe's with her. Just as we were getting to the parking lot I got a call from John Griffin, and we chatted a while about PowePoint stuff.

At any rate, we now have much foodstuffs in the house again, which is ein gutes Ding.

In the evening I actually did another half hour of work, which I think is very cool of me.

I never ended up getting hungry again after eating all that sammitch... until around 11:00 at night, so I jammed a handful of cheddar snack mix into my food hole while watching Freaks & Geeks in bed with Carrie.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Zillow

This is a really cool website where you can find the estimated value of your home and those of your entire neighborhood. Or any neighborhood. Anywhere in the nation. Visit Zillow.com

Wi-Finally ! !

I totally forgot to write in this thing yesterday. Yay me! Well, the big news is that I finally did it. I went and got myself a wireless router. Now if anyone comes over with a wireless laptop, they can go on teh intarnets. I can play Mario Kart DS against people from all over the world any time I want... assuming that the game can actually find opponents (it's surprisingly bad at it). I can visit my pals' Animal Crossing towns even though they all live 30-or-more miles away.

It's pretty awexome.

So if anyone is interested, here is my WFC info:

Mario Kart DS
Friend Code: 004354 558412

Animal Crossing: Wild World
Friend Code: 3093-0137-5047
Name: f-Body
Town: Big Baby

Umm... everything else kinda pales in comparison, so let's see what else I can remember. Yesterday (Wednesday) I did not see Carrie very much, because she didn't come home for lunch due to meetings, then after lunch she hung out (went shopping) with Cat & Missa, then after that she hung out (went shopping) with Linnea. She didn't get home really until 10:00 at night.

She hadn't eaten, and her blood sugar was crashing. She's trying not to eat after 9:00 at night, because it's not really that good for you, but she was starving. So we went to Jack in the Box, but they were out of Jalepeno Poppers. I got a burger and then we drove to Taco Bell so she could get a danged quesadilla and a pintos & cheese.

She felt much better after she actually had food in her belly.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Am I Awake?

Yesterday (Monday) Carrie had off of work due to spending the entire weekend working down in Tucson. She basically stayed in bed until noon.

I, however, got up at a fairly reasonable time and got to work. I worked some more. I ate nothing but leftover pizza for breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snack.

The whole day I felt a little fuzzy and groggy, as if I never truly woke up. 'Twas strange, 'twas.

Arount 3:00 Carrie & I went to Ever After to pick up her consignment cheque. After that I worked some more.

Carrie made herself some of her packaged Indian Food for din-dins. I had run out of pizza by this point, so I made myself a danged quesadilla. During/after dinner we watched the commentary tracks on Jay & Silent Bob do Degrassi.

Then in the evening I wrote an article. Crazy, I know! I honestly meant to write one last month (I want to write at least one a month), but I just kept forgetting! But here's one now, my annual Oscar picks:

My Oscar Picks: Voting by Default

Later in the evening my big belly scar started to really hurt. I think it's because it was so cold. So cold.

No Sweat

This company sells Union-Made, Sweatshop-Free Casual Apparel. I think that's pretty cool.

Monday, February 06, 2006

Critical Pizza Failure

Last night I had a very strange dream that I was just beginning to go out with Caitlin Ryan, a character from the Degrassi series of shows played by Stacie Mistysyn. We went to a school that was on an island, and the only way to it was across a very high bridge via a dangling transport, not unlike the one on the Raptor rollercoaster in Cedar Point. The dream also had a talking cat named Kristy, and a skinny Hawaiian man with gigantic man-boobs. Caitlin was already dating someone when the dream started, but after we made out a couple of times (including once in line at a movie theater) she broke up with him. He ran out into the living room of the house where we all lived, and tripped and fell on the floor right as I walked into the room, too. He looked up at me and said, "Who are you?" Embarrassed for him, I said, "I just live in this building."

Anway, the reason I had this dream will become apparent soon.

Yesterday (Sunday) I slept in until almost 10:00. Shortly after I woke up Brandy called me and we talked for about 45 minutes, which was very nice. I washed some dishes and cleaned the house some before practice, during which we spent all but one hour trying to think of the logistics of our upcoming super-secret 76th Fools Play Format. It's complicated, and it is WAY different from anything else Fools Play does. WAY.

After practice I washed another load of dishes and then drove up to Mark & Viki's to pick Carrie up there, home from Tucson. We drove back home and on the way remarked how we were both famished; I was especially so, seeing as all I'd eaten all day was a bowl of cereal and a Babybell cheese, and a couple of peanut butter crackers.

I would have eaten more, but Geoff rolled two critical failures when trying to order pizza. See, he got to practice about 10-15 minutes early, and was starving. He thought he'd order pizza. But the first time he called they put him on hold, and then instead of switching back to him they simply hung up on him. Then he tried again about 15 minutes later and successfully connected to someone, but when he gave them my address they said that they don't deliver there, even though I've ordered pizza from them about a dozen times before. So Geoff just gave up and we didn't get pizza during practice.

But when I brought Carrie back to the house and dropped off the luggage, we went to drive to get something to eat. I then remembered that it was Superbowl Sunday (which probably had something to do with the pizza people being so futzed up), and the only places we really wanted to go also had televisions in them. We didn't want to be exposed to that so we came back home and I successfully ordered pizzas from the same people who said earlier in the day that they wouldn't deliver to my address. Huh. Imagine that.

We ate pizza and watched Jay & Silent Bob do Degrassi, which is why later that night I had a dream about making out with Caitlin Ryan.

Hey, Mr. Smith! Get your grubby mitts offa my girlfriend!

Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Something Saturday

Yesterday (Saturday) I didn't sleep in. I actually got up at a reasonable time, which is an absolute miracle when my wife isn't home. It's really hard for me to actually wake up in the morning when she's not around; my brain doesn't process that I should wake up if she's not also waking up.

However, post-surgery me usually has to get up early in the morning to go to the bathroom, so that probably helped some. A lot of some.

Anyway, I spent Saturday at home working. Working on a lot of work stuff, but also on a lot of fun stuff. I looked up the Ukulele chords for "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" so that maybe someday I'll be able to play it as well as Bradda Iz. I drew. I went to MSM II Deli and got a six-inch American sammitch (that store has some of the best deli sammitches in Tacoma). I played some Animal Crossing.

I worked and generally relaxed, and it was very nice.

Then I drove down to Fools Play and was actually the first one at the theater for once, so I set up all the heat stuff. It was really frikkin' cold that day (it was frikkin' cold all weekend, come to think of it, while Carrie was off in Tucson where it was in the mid-70s all weekend). The show was exhibition, and it was really a lot of fun. I did a tribute song to "Yannick," the short man with golden teeth who defended a small village from maurauding wolves—by biting them with his golden teeth—at the cost of his own life. We also did a vegetable-themed Jamboree. I hope some of the stuff sounds good recorded, because I was unuasually "on" when I was singing. I think I might have actually been in key sometimes.

After the show me, my brother, Sandy, Mathias, and Devlen went to The Ribeye (by the way, check out that link; it's a journal where Sandy, Mathias, and Mike review diners), where there was also Leia and her posse. The table next to theirs was too small to handle our group, so we moved one farther away. They could have moved to take the table we vacated, but instead chose to remain in the far beyond. That's okay, 'cause Teh Jake appeared and ended up sitting there with a couple other peoples.

Then I drove home. Shocking, I know, but I've never been one to care about what the neighbors think.

Saturday, February 04, 2006

You Make a Pizza (as you can see) with Onions, Mushrooms, and Pepperoni

Yesterday (Friday) I woke up later than I wanted to because there was no Carrie there to wake me. I worked pretty much the whole morning, then I took a lunch break and ate sushi and watched Disney's Treasure Planet.

You know what? It wasn't awful. Aside from the "why?" premise, and the horrible, horrible acting (if people ever auditioned for me and overacted as badly as the drawings in this movie, I'd laugh them out of the building and all the way back to their homes), the central relationship of the movie, between Jim and Long John Silver, was very effectively handled.

I worked more during the afternoon (including working on Leia's Neopets site for her), and finally took a shower around 3:00.

For dinner I cooked a sausage pizza and watched all but the first 15 minutes of Jackie Brown, which really is an excellent film and certainly does not feel as long as it is.

Then around 8:00 I drove up to the Round Table Pizza in Burien to hang out with Sandy, Mathias, Ed, Josiah, and some of Josiah's friends there. Why Burien? I dunno. It was kinda close to Josiah's place, I guess. How do I know that? Because after the pizza I followed Sandy & Mathias there. It was a really depressing apartment/bottom-floor of a house. Sandy, Mathias, & I all ran around in each other's Animal Crossing towns. I gave Mathias some shoji screen wallpaper and Sandy a robo-table. Sandy & I typed horrible innuendoes to each other. One of the people there put on Fawlty Towers in the background. So it wasn't too bad of a time all things considered.

We all left around midnight-fifteen, and the big wind storm had just started. It was very windy and soaky wet out. I drove home down Pac Highway to avoid driving on the freeway during crazy weather; I had had enough crazy freeway weather on Wednesday coming back from Leia's.

When I got home I put on disc on of The Tick - The Entire Series and went to bed to it.

Of the Month: February '06

I realized that I kepk forgetting to do this, so here it is, five days late:

Link of the Month:
Jonathan Coulton
This guy writes really, really great music. I like to say that Tenacious D is to rock as Jonathan Coulton is to alt-folk. Usually very funny, inappropriate lyrics set to beautiful guitars and heartfelt singing. For the past almost five months he has been writing one song every week and putting them on his website for free download. I suggest you get them all! And donate a couple of bucks if you do, to keep this thing going as long as possible.

DVD of the Month:
The Tick - The Entire Series
This is one of my favorite incarnations of Ben Edlund's infamous creations. I like it even better than the cartoon, due to the fact that you don't have to sheild your eyes from crappy animation in order to enjoy the really witty writing. The cast is all spot-on, especially Patrick Warburton as the big blue guy, and there are some great guest stars including Armin Shimmerman, Christopher Lloyd, Dave Foley, and Ron Perlman.

Game of the Month:
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Aargh! So addicting! So fun! And this Animal Crossing kicks so much ass compared to the first one for the simple reason that you can go over to a friend's town and run around with them. Plus, with Wi-Fi you can do this from miles and miles away!

Friday, February 03, 2006

Baby, You Can Drive My Car

Yesterday (Thursday, although all day long it felt like Wednesday) Carrie & I ended up sleeping in until 10:00. She then spent all morning getting ready to fly, while I spent most of the morning loading music onto her iPod Nano so she would have stuff to listen to whilst in transit. I downloaded some Loveline (including one with a couple of the girls from Laguna Beach, about which she was very excited) and ripped a whole bunch of CDs onto iTunes.

At around 1:00 we packed up the car and I drove her to the store so she could pick up her itinerary, then she drove to the airport.

<tangent>
When we went up to Leia's on Wednesday, she for some reason seemed surprised that Carrie was driving. Not sure why. Whenever the two of us drive somewhere, Carrie usually drives. See, when it comes to cars, Carrie is kind of a control freak. She has a lot of trouble putting her fate in someone else's hands, including mine. But this control-freakishness only really manifests itself with cars.

I, on the other hand, have absolutely no problem when other people drive me around. I find it incredibly relaxing, and I have the Superheroic ability to fall asleep instantly in any moving vehicle (any enclosed moving vehicle I should say—I probably couldn't fall asleep on a motorcycle for instance).

So I have absolutely no problem letting Carrie drive. It makes her more comfortable, and honestly it makes me more comfortable as well. So there!
</tangent>

After I saw her safely off at the airport, I came back home and kida relaxed and tried to figure out something to do.

I ended up drawing a really very nice drawing of Starfire, which you can see HERE. Click it! Go on, do it, or there will be consequences...

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Chicken & Salmon for Din-Dins in Redmond!

Yesterday (Wednesday) Carrie again had work off, due to it being her last full day before flying to Tucson. So I got up and worked in the morning until about noonish, and then I "helped" Carrie clean and get ready and stuff.

In reality, we watched Buffy and napped and relaxed.

At 5:00 Carrie walked down to E-9 to hang out with Cat. I drove to the bank to get some cash out for Carrie's trip, and also to turn some of our change into paper money. There was more than 20 dollars of change in our jar, which ain't bad. You can buy a lot for 20 bucks.

I stopped by E-9 and picked up Carrie, and the two of us drove up to Redmond to have dinner at Leia's apartment. She made chicken for herself and the boys, and salmon for Carrie, with rice and a broccoli cheese thing. The chicken was very good, very well-seasoned.

But before din-dins we played some Mario Kart in a couple of variations. For a while it was three players, because Leia was cooking. But then she came into the living room and it was still three players, because it was the two of them versus Carrie versus me. They're very good at cooperative play. Carrie & I are much more practiced at competitive.

Then after dinner both Carrie & I visited Leia's Animal Crossing town of Iorek. Someone from my town was living there, to my surprise!

They have a very cute kitten named Hildegard (Hildie for short). It is absolutely hyper. And loves to jump. And is super-fast. And very cute. I said that already, though. After a couple hours of being there, though, Carrie's allergies exlodulated. She hasn't had allergies for very long, so she always forgets to bring antihistamines with her when she goes places that might have animals.

Anyway, it was almost midnight by the time we got home. The drive home was really scary because it was raining so hard. So hard. But the time spent up north was a very fun time, and I'm glad I finally got to go to their apartment (it's kinda hard seeing as how they live all the way on the other side of the state practically, if you're an exaggerator).

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Nickel & Dime-d

Yesterday (Tuesday) was a funny day because I kept on getting tiny little nickel-and-dime assignments from The Bead Factory. But I got a tonne of them.

It was Carrie's last day of work before she flies out (tomorrow), and it was a regular 8:30 to 4:30 day with a lunch break and everything. I had suhi for breakfast, enchiladas for lunch and enchiladas for din-dins. Huh? Oh, I should say I had frozen enchiladas (thawed in the microrave) for lunch, and Carrie & I went to La Fondita Mexican Restaurant for din-dins.

They have some of the best enchiladas in the area. Really very tasty. Also we had a two-for-one coupon from the Entertainment Book that one of us got in our stocking at Christmas.

I called Leia because we're supposed to go over to her & Kedar's place for din-dins today (Wednesday), but I just got a voicemail and she never called me back. I don't know where she lives, or what time they want us there, or if they want us to bring anything, or anything like that. So if Leia is reading this, call me back!

This is Chris dot com

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Goodbye, Ant Hill Mob