The Nellie Spot

Well, of the 2 fish we started with, we are now down to 1 fish (and yes, I used the same photo but photoshopped the dead fish out). In less than a week, I have managed to kill 50% of my fish, even with cleaning the tank 3 times.

And the outlook for fish #2 isn't looking so hot. I give him 10:1 odds to last until next Monday. But it's not for trying! I swear, I looked up so many things on the internet about caring for fish and it still didn't work. I mean, I'm only out $1.88 from Walmart, but I think Allison got attached to the fish, even in such a short time. In fact, she called me at work today to pronounce Buggy dead at 11:52 AM. Thankfully, Emma saw the fish floating at the top, and just pointed and said "fiss!!". Dodged a bullet this time!

Anyway, pray for Fish #2, lovingly named "Fish"...he seem sad and possibly injured. Right now, he frantically swims to the top, then floats down to the rocks and just bumps against them...then lays there, then repeat. I'm no marine biologist, but that can't be normal.

Allison and I are trying to get Emma more accustomed to using her fork to eat dinner. Tonight, she would NOT eat anything...until we handed her the fork (which is of course a special, child-safe fork). Immediately, she began eating, completely fuss-free.

However, the choice of food was untimely: Ravioli. Needless to say, and as seen in the picture above, about 18% of the sauce went into her mouth...the rest is ON her mouth, on her hands, on the floor, in Belle's (our dog) hair, on her arms, and up her nose.

And the whole time, she's absolutely BEAMING because she's so proud of herself for eating with a fork.

Please welcome the newest family members to the household! The orange one is "Fish", and the black one with the buggy eyes is "Buggy". Yes, we are THAT creative.

Emma is getting to the point where she can say certain words...not horribly pronounced, but she's understandable. One of her words is "fish", which sounds more like "fisssss". So I figure she really likes fish, since it's one of her words that is remotely affordable (she can also say horse...but I ain't springing for a horse...ever). And since she likes fish so much (and they're affordable), I run out and buy some fish! Now she can say "fish" all she wants! They're her first pet, but I'll be taking responsibility for them until she's old enough to be responsible (like 35) or until the fish die (which I'm guessing will happen first). And when they die, at least we have a good way to ease her into the concept of death and why she needs Jesus. And of course, the fish have been baptised by submersion, so they'll be waiting for her in heaven. :)

Man...that really looks and sounds twisted when you actually write it out.

Ok, thanks to Murray's past posts on the forthcoming Xbox 360, I am now entangled in a mass of rumors and sheer slap-happiness over this thing!

Gizmodo's latest post on Xbox 360

Gaming Horizon's Hardware Leak

Gaming Horizon's Xbox Live Leak


I have to say...reading the Live leak makes me druel and my tummy gets full of butterflies. This thing (if all is true) is something I'm already lusting after. Unfortunately, the only down side to this is the controller. It looks pretty lame...almost a rip off of Logitech's wireless controller.

I went to my niece's slow pitch softball game tonight and was talking to my sister and wife about how fun softball is to play. I played on the Grove's city league team a few years ago and LOVED it! We sucked (and I really helped out in that area), but I had a great time and had great fellowship doing it!

My sister mentioned that softball was fun and then jokingly said, "Kickball is better, though. We should have a kickball tournament!". My jaw dropped and my eyes lit up! That is PERFECT! Get as many people together as possible (which could be a lot if the Grover's step up), and have a 1 day kickball tournament with different teams!

If you're interested, let me know. I'll work on some details while y'all comment about ideas, too.

I'm a techie. Not a very smart one, but I'm certainly a lover of gadgets. And I love home theater stuff! I love the feeling of emersing myself into the sights and sounds of a movie. I just watched Star Wars: The Phantom Menace last night just so I could hear the pod race scene and the cool surround sound effects it offers.

However, as much as I love all of this, I really hate setting up my own system. I love helping others pick out the systems and installing those, but for some freaky weird reason, I hate doing my own. Maybe it's because I have super high standards / expectations. Maybe it's because I complicate things beyond what they need to be.

But I just got a TV upgrade (42" widescreen from 27" 4:3) with super-duper, neat-o entertainment center (thanks the help on that, Miller), and I haven't finished setting it up yet. It's about 75% finished, but I have to mount the surround speakers and wire them through the walls. I also have to re-adjust all my levels. And through all of this, making sure the wife approves of the speaker location / asthetics of the system.

I needed to get that off my chest. I'm a freak, but I've actually been stressing about it since we moved. I want it finished so I can relax in the splendor of home theater entertainment (and Halo 2!), but I dread the setting up of it all. How sad is that????

Sorry for the title...but that song is darn catchy.

Moving on!

And speaking of moving, the fam is now all moved over to the new house. We're (read: Allison) are diligently unpacking boxes, rearranging furniture, finding places to hang stuff, trying hard to hang stuff (read: I can't hang things worth a flying flip, so there are 4 holes for every 1 useable hole), and adjusting to the new house. I will post some pics of it later, when things are a bit more polished.

We spent almost a **GASP** full week without TV or Internet. It's amazing to me how dependent we are on both of these items, more so on the Internet than TV. Allison would ask me about something we could put in a certain place at the house, and I would shrug and say, "Not sure, let's go Google it and see what we find". But that wasn't possible. I easily said / thought this like 10 times over the course of 2 days.

I also got extremely "off" blogging, which is weird. I got back to work, had my internet up, and glanced over my RSS feeds for the blogs I read. Granted, I had a TON to do at work, but even in my down time, I only half-heartedly read the new posts I missed while disconnected. I believe I'm getting back into the groove, though, which is good. Kinda like post-partum blogging, I guess. But I'm back now. :)

More news / updates / blogs to come. And certainly more Halo 2!!!