Or Kevin as we mere mortals know ya. Hope you have a good one!

He's not upset, he's just been very sick and has had a lot of stuff happen to his family and himself the last month. As much as I am glad he's not upset with me I do feel bad about everything going on with him.

Also, it is Heather's birthday today so yay Heather!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC8V8S_REhk

Wavin' flag by K'naan is a great song.

So is this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-aAZT15eHc

One Day by Matisyahu. Heather tells me he's an Orthodox Jew that does hip hop. Insane. I wonder if Robin could see this and tell us what she thinks?

I ate so much pizza for dinner tonight I am tuft. Yes, that is Timmy speak for "stuffed". I have graciously decided to allow its use by all and sundry.

Damn it. I've never read those silly books but if I can play a werewolf FINALLY in a MMO I'd have to play it just to rip someone's face off. Grrr! I r fierce!

I'm playing Marvel ultimate alliance 2 and with the download pack there's a lot of characters. But you still can't play Hobgoblin, one of my favorite villains. Sure he's an alt costume in the game for Green Goblin but A. it looks HORRIBLE and B. its still not the actual Hob. And I WANT Hob dammit. I also want to play as metal winged and blue skinned Archangel.

Edit: I forgot to mention the avatar for this is in fact said Hobgoblin. I realize Eric is the only person who probably already knew this. And he's probably snickering somewhere that I like Hobgoblin...

I just wanted to say happy turkey day to everyone and I'm thankful to have great friends like you guys and gals. We got back from my parents house full of turkey and pie. Mmm!

We brought the zombie game I blogged about before and it was a HUGE hit. We had five people playing and its a LOT more fun with more players. I won (haha!) but it was REALLY close.

We've got Janette's presents and we're trying to think of some things Vivvy can't get in Melbourne that we have here in the States. Besides the obvious we know about from her previous trip that is! So anyone have some ideas?

Oh Viv if you come by again we are definitely going here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okefenokee_Swamp

We lost yet again, now we're at 5-5 with six games to go. We HAVE TO win every remaining game just to have a shot at a wildcard.

Jason Elam is the worst kicker in the NFL. He's older than God and he's horrible. He misses more easy field goals than any kicker I've ever seen. He needs to go.

Michael Jenkins had several drops and the clincher was dropping an easy touchdown in the endzone. He was wide open, all he had to do was close his hands on it. And he dropped it.

Our defense couldn't stop a cold. They are HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORible. I mean terribad x infinity bad. We need to fire the defensive coordinator and draft two cornerbacks and another outside linebacker. Actually there's so many holes you couldn't fill them in one draft and one free agency signing period. Its a damn JOKE how bad they are.

Trying it out again, my shadowknight is fun but I have to admit my bruiser is pretty cool. You just don't get to play martial artists in MMORPGs outside of EQ/EQ2.

I was watching one of my Tru Television shows and it had some kind of most daring episode on it. And lo and behold it was in Australia and it was chock full of Australian daredevils and races and crazy crooks and whatnot. And what did my ears hear? Tons of people saying CRIKEY! Yes, Viv, you Aussies DO say it! Crikey!

I finished it a few days ago after Heather finally finished it. It certainly was bizarre reading a WoT book that was not completely written by Robert Jordan. You can definitely tell when it switched between the two authors. Sanderson was decent but frankly I've read better fanfics and RP posts that had more of a Jordan "feel" if you will. He was absolutely atrocious in writing Mat for example. I think his vocabulary for Mat extends to "burning" or "flaming" or "ashes". In random order.

As for the rest I thought it was a good book because things actually happened.

Spoiler alert!




















I loved seeing Elaida finally get her comeuppance. The problem with her though is that I found her entirely unbelievable a character over the last few books. Let's think about this for a second: she's an Aes Sedai that's served for many years as the Andoran royal advisor and had a degree of power and influence all her own. She takes over as Amrylin and SUDDENLY she's this out of control power mad bitch. What?? I'm sorry but I don't believe it. Some people can go over the top when given power, sure, but not to this extent without being certifiable nuts (like Hitler or Stalin). Which she is not. So yes, I'm glad she's gone (although I think we'll see her again as a perfect little damane just to show she's been broken) and Egwene is the queen bee of Tar Valon.

Egwene is the only female character that's attached to Rand that I actually enjoy reading. I freaking HATE Elayne (spoiled rich bitch times ten) and Aviendha still hasn't evolved as a character beyond "I'm Xena of the Aiel now forced to be a Wise One" and is almost unreadable to me. Just no flavor there at all as a person. Perhaps her trip to Rhuidean will help.

Mat was so poorly written in this book I seriously had to wonder if Sanderson's children did not write it. There's nothing there, just a cliche of someong using bad Randland language. And oh, they still haven't went to that flaming Tower to free burning Moiraine. Bloody ashes!

Rand, well, at least by the end of the book he's starting to become a real person again. This whole "I'm so tough! I've got to be harder than rock, no iron, no steel, no heartwood! YEAH!" was SO childish and emo that it bordered on laughable. "I can't laugh or love because I'm going to DIE so YEAH IN YOUR FACE CADSAUNE!" LOL ok there sport. Hopefully that scene at the end of the book is his becoming the interesting Rand we actually liked reading in the first few books.

I think what's going to happen with the Seanchan is simple: Mat shows up with Tuon and makes her realize how god awful their treatment of people truly is. They will come to peace with Rand and either in the next book or in the next series (if there is one) Rand and Mat/Tuon will invade Seanchan to free the damane and put Tuon whose now "enlightened" on top of the Crystal Throne. Hell Rand might even bow to her as a token gesture just to fulfill that prophecy of theirs.

I have to mention how much I hate balefire as a literary excuse used in this series. I hate time travel and anything that uses it. This whole "burn someone completely from the Pattern" has SO many plot holes. If you balefired Semirhage then all the things she did before didnt' happen because she wasn't there to do them. So all the people she killed or tortured should be alive and well. Its so stupid.

If they killed Graendal like that I will be LIVID. She is by far the best Forsaken in this series, the only one whose close was Sammael. Graendal is clever, cunning, ruthless and she's a survivalist. There is no way I can see her being killed like they want you to believe. I also can't help but feel if she really is dead its simply because Sanderson as a Mormon didn't want to write any "questionable" material involving her. Which is both patronizing to the mature reader and to the general reader for getting rid of a thoroughly enjoyable villain.

All in all I thought this was a good read. We know coming up that Mat's going to invent cannons and probably muskets and that will change warfare forever in Randland. We know Rand seems to have went back to good ol' Rand. And we know that the White Tower is whole. The next book has to focus on the Black Tower and something with the Seanchan and HOPEFULLY Moraine being freed.

It gives me hours of enjoyment from watching piles and piles of idiots caught on camera to weird random facts like the one they just had.

The most painful insect bite in the world is this thing called a bullet ant.


These are pretty large ants. And on this scale of painful insect bites its literally off the scale. The pain of one sting is described as heating up a pair of pliers until the metal is hot and then repeatedly pinching and pulling on your skin with it. The effects of the sting last over 24 hours. Its pretty brutal. So, of course, I'm not exactly surprised to find out its a manhood ritual for the hard working indigenous people of...somewhere (sorry, Fight Club reference) and yeah here's a video of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WQ6rFKhyn0

Now I want to know who thought of the idea to weave gloves of angry, angry ants and then decides its a manhood ritual. And oh you have go through this TWENTY TIMES before you are considered a man.

I'll just stick to the kids menu.

Viv if you see this back in Aussieland I could both kiss and kill you! Those Tim Tams are freaking AWESOME!

"The things you own end up owning you."

Do you guys know who Rousseau is? His most famous quote is "“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. He who believes himself the master of others does not escape being more of a slave than they."

This is pretty much a continuation of Rousseau's thought. He expressed the belief that the first person who came up with the idea of material possessions or taking more than he could use and calling it "mine" should have been stoned. I agree with him. We work all our lives in today's world to achieve one material goal after another.

"If I can just pay off this bill, I can get..." how many of us (including myself) say this? How many of us have massive credit card debt or horrible credit from overextending ourselves to try and live The Life? Thankfully Heather and I have avoided that. But its still the same Great Chain of Material Being: go to college (why) to get a job (why) to rent (why) to save (why) to afford a house (why) to get equity (why) to use it buy more things. Why? How  did mankind find itself in this sate? Are we destined to live forever in a non ending half existence where almost everything we measure ourselves  by relates directly to our material wealth or possessions?

I own a house. I own a car. I own cable systems. I own a computer. And yet each of these things end up owning me for the amount of time I must spend to use another Tyler quote "We work jobs we hate to buy shit we don't need." If I can only find someone to pay me for my opining then I could at least partake in a profession that stimulates my intellect instead of the mind numbing corporate blah job I have.

Not only is one of my favorite movies of all time there are so many different meanings in that movie that should be seriously considered by our American society. Our country only cares about pop or comfort, as Tyler says  murder or crime mean nothing to us, just 500 channels and more IKEA furniture that "completes" us.

I know people who can't watch it because of the violence but you miss the entire point: our society has become so dehumanized that the only way these men can connect with one another is through violence. How sad is that? How TRUE is that now? If someone cuts you off in traffic how many of us react angrily (myself included) and yet we hear about so and so dying and we're like "Meh...flip it to Idol LOLZ look at her hair!"

Even though we connect here on the web its still not the same as direct human interaction. I hate the fact we have become so selfish that we as a society hardly do anything AS a society any more. Is it any wonder Tyler Durdens' utopia is this anti technology new Stone Age where  people only eat what they can grow or catch and people live in small communities?

I hate that team and to see them deliver the greatest choke job in the history of sports was just priceless. Thank you Giants!!

So er yeah hiya :OP

I have not posted in here because I wanted to give some good news.

I did NOT get the job I was talking about earlier. However I did interview for the same position, different department. That was a month ago and I have not heard ANYTHING about it since then.

In the meantime we did get a kick ass 2007 Inferno Red Dodge Charger R/T with the 5.7 V8 engine and yeah its got a HEMI and it has 18" rims. Its a beautiful car. I wish we could take pics of it.

Hopefully I can find out something soon so I can post again!

Whooo!!

I got an email today requesting a second interview. Of course I said yes! They also called my supervisor and asked her about me. She could not tell me what she said but from the gist of what she said it was very positive. I really think I have a good chance of getting this!

Also, Heather is just so adorable playing Guitar Hero 3 on my PS3. I got her the game with the guitar as part of her Christmas.And she's been playing like crazy since we got it! It took us hours to get it to connect but we finally did. If any of you get the PS3 version and need help getting the guitar to connect to the console just ask us, we finally figured it out because the manual is TRASH.