Tag: Reviews

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The Finale of Skywalker

We got up this morning and watched The Last Jedi while snacking on leftovers. I took a shower while Summer and Eaddie went to the gym, and then we left for Conway to see the final episode of this new trilogy.

We had a bit of time to kill, so we walked through Dollar Tree for a little while before walking to the theater. Autumn didn’t seem to have any trouble on her crutches for that little distance, so hopefully she doesn’t fuss too much about being back at school. I enjoyed the movie, and though a ton of it seemed like fan service, I felt like it did a pretty good job of wrapping up this new trilogy. I would have liked to see the new characters developed a bit better, but I guess we have the wasted second episode to blame for that.

It was dark by the time we got out of the theater, so we headed straight back home. I dropped the girls off and went home for the night so I could get ready for work again in the morning.

It hardly seems fair – I’d only just forgotten the sound of my alarm.

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No One Mourns the Wicked

I slept in a little later than I meant to this morning. I had to wake Eaddie up to get her to her friend’s house, and then I stopped by the post office to return my first Fossil watch on the way home. I had a lunch date with Brandon, so I headed home to shower and then met him at Linh. He had come down to visit after moving again to Seattle, so we had a lot of catching up to do.

As soon as we finished, I headed home to change, then picked Summer up to head to Conway. I had a bunch of Kohl’s Cash to burn, and then we continued to Little Rock to meet Julie and my parents for dinner. They decided on Samantha’s Tap Room, and boy was I unimpressed. It felt like high prices and fine dining portions, but almost everyone’s food was overcooked and dry or tough. Our waitress was nice enough, but nobody wanted to send anything back. Having to pay for sides à la carte just added insult to injury. I felt like they just grabbed bottles of “Asian” sauce and used it wherever they could to seem worldly. I would have had to stop by a Wendy’s afterward if I hadn’t gotten some hunks of steak from Mom and Julie after I finished my lamb “lollipops.”

We all took Mom’s car to the Robinson Center for the show, and made it inside with plenty of time to spare. Julie had gotten us all tickets to see Wicked, which I’d wanted to see several years ago, but with little priority. It was an incredible story, though it was difficult for me to understand well over half of the words being sung. I was familiar enough that it didn’t have a huge impact on my enjoyment, but Mom apparently fell asleep during the first act. The intermission didn’t seem particularly necessary, but seemed nice anyhow. The set changes were awesome to see live, but I wished I had binoculars in spite of our relatively close seating.

After the show, it took us forever to get out of the parking garage. It seemed like they just cleared out everybody in front of us before we could leave. Once back to my car, Summer and I headed home, making one quick stop at the Conway Rally’s for some fries to fill my completely unsatisfied belly.

Like a ship blown from its mooring.

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The Dark and Twisted World of Lace

Autumn got up this morning and immediately abandoned ship to stay with her grandparents. I got out of bed and munched on some leftover breakfast and watched some YouTube while Summer dropped her off and hit the gym. When she got back, Eaddie wanted to go shopping, so I went home to clean up and met them at Shoe Carnival. They had already been to a couple other stores, and this was their last stop. I picked up a couple new pairs of shoes for myself, and then I let Eaddie pick Zaxby’s for dinner.

We decided to stay at my house and start on The Mandalorian, so we picked up some things for them and headed home for the night. Just as we started the show, Allen called and asked if I wanted some bananas. He had just left church, and they were giving them away. I remembered seeing Walmart’s barren banana shelf a couple days prior, so I guess now I know where they all went. He and Charlotte stopped by and gave me an entire case of them. It was literally and figuratively bananas. They visited for just a minute before leaving, and we continued with the first two episodes.

I found myself completely unable to suspend my belief, even for this beloved sci-fi fantasy franchise. We were introduced to a character, told immediately and without any ambiguity that he was a badass, and then followed him on a journey of hijinks and near-comical level of close calls. Then he proceeded to wander across the planet on foot, followed by a floating crib, where he was previously told it would be inaccessible without taming and riding, like a Disney princess, on the 3D render of a kindergartner’s drawing of a T. rex. We knew he wasn’t the only one after this extremely high-level target, yet it floated around behind him completely open to any wandering eyes, as though he was inviting additional antics from any would-be antagonists. The music initially gave me a nice space-western vibe, but then filled in with too much horn. My favorite part of the whole series was the episode-specific art slideshow that played behind the credits. Of course I’ll watch the rest of the series, but like The Last Jedi, I was left utterly disappointed and found myself caring less about the franchise.

Summer had to work again the next day, so they called it a night. I stayed up a bit longer, surfing the dark underbelly of the internet and following a rabbit hole of the boat shoe cult and their traditional leather shoelace knots.

Mando? More like Mango. Except mangos are delicious.

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Chili Fingers

I froze all day long, with my office blowing nothing but cold air at me. I spent almost the entire day sifting through verbose log files to try and fix the same Chrome issue that I’m sure ultimately doesn’t matter because it’s an old computer on an old 32-bit version of Windows 7, but I wanted to try anyway. An hour or so in, I was surprised with a lockdown drill, so for the first time I actually had to participate. Just as I got up to lock the door, a girl peeked in my window and needed a place to hide, so I let her in and we sat in the dark together for the next 15 minutes until they gave the all-clear.

I finally took a break to grab my new Fossil Gen 5 Carlyle that was delivered, and headed to the shop for lunch. Allen and Gary wanted Kob Jai, and against what every experience I’ve ever had there, I decided to give it another shot. They got grilled chicken, which was really just two boneless, skinless chicken breasts charred until black on the outside and served with a container of sticky rice and an egg roll or two. It was simply the most underwhelming looking plate I could imagine anyone serving, but the chicken looked good for those that like it cooked just a step above jerky. I had the pad thai again, this time with “all the stars,” and the noodles were super tough and chewy. There was very little chicken, especially compared to what appeared to be four breasts sitting across the table from me. It tasted alright I guess, but overall I should really commit to never going there again.

When we got back to the shop, I spent quite a while setting up my new watch with Gary. The first big update caused the watch to run super poorly while also absolutely nuking the battery. I got it up to 100% while setting it up, and then after failing the first update attempt, it dropped down below 60% within just a few minutes. A restart and re-download of the same update later, it did finally succeed and ran smooth as butter.

I wrapped up the day working on the same stuff I’d wasted all morning on, and headed home in the freezing cold. I got some gas, then ran the dollar menu gauntlet for some Wendy’s nuggets and McDonald’s fries because I was super hungry after only eating half of my lunch plate. I finished them along with my leftovers for lunch, then bundled up the best I could for a cold night at home. Jack came on and we played a little Overwatch before bed.

Hands like ice.

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Super Ridgewood Bros.

I couldn’t sleep in this morning for all the light pouring into the house. Summer had to work, so it was just the girls and me all morning. Eaddie came out and played some Mario Kart and Ultimate Alliance 3 with me for a bit. Eventually I headed home to clean up, then went to pick up some food from Grant and Robert. Evidently Felix helps out there occasionally as well, and then Ray stopped in and chatted with me for a bit while I waited. Grant came around and handed me a big sack of meat that I took to the shop for Summer, along with some rolls and chips from the Neighborhood Market. The ribs were thick and meaty, and some of the best we’d ever had. At first I thought the sauce was a bit overpowered by apple cider vinegar, but it really grew on me as I continued eating.

Once we were stuffed from that, I finally stopped by Walgreens to fill my prescription. Then I headed home to try out Destiny 2 on Stadia. The game ran great, and though I absolutely despised playing it on a controller, I felt like it helped the input latency feel less significant. Overall I was very impressed with how well it ran, and also pretty overwhelmed by the unnecessarily complicated nature of the game. Hopefully Stadia will be great for some racing games though.

After a while I got really cold in the house, so I decided to warm things up by doing a little cleaning. I got all the dishes done and cleaned up a bit of space in the kitchen before Summer got here. The girls spent the night with their father since the Splash company Thanksgiving event happens tomorrow evening, and we can have a good day in Little Rock until then. Once she did get here, I showed her a bit of Stadia and how much anxiety I have about how much is going on in that game. We were going to watch Battlestar Galactica: Razor, but ended up watching a few Tesla videos instead until we were both too tired to stay up any longer.

I’m actually only feeding two, but one of them is me!

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Ramping up for Break

We met at the shop this morning but didn’t have any projects, so I ended up walking around vo-tech with Ben and some guys that were going to quote a cell dialer for our fire panels. Afterward, I went inside and did a couple little work orders before heading back to the shop for lunch. Allen was the only one at the shop, so he and I left to meet Gary, Zach, and Jason at Brangus for lunch. My beef spud was particularly good today.

After lunch I got a bit of an ocular migraine and had to sit down for a while. Gary came into Zach’s office with me since Zach left for a lockdown drill, and we chatted about what life is like being surrounded by girls. Nearing the end of the day, we started to look at my PowerShell script again, but ultimately left without learning much even after Ben joined in.

I ran home to get my delivered Stadia package inside, then went to Russellville Eye Clinic for my appointment. I had to fill out some new patient paperwork and waited just a little while before they called me back. Then they set me up at a machine with a little farm house inside it, and it wiggled around until it had my approximate prescription. Most of my time in the back was spent giving them information about my past prescriptions, but at one point they brought the insurance lady back to talk to me, and it was my old classmate Brian’s mother Donna that recognized my name and came back to chat briefly.

Overall, my experience at the clinic was wonderful, and everyone I dealt with was super friendly. I guess nobody really went way out of their way to do anything necessarily, and the girl that helped me initially seemed pretty new, but nothing about my visit was deserving of any of the 1-star reviews the place has on Google Maps. Once I complete my contact fitting and get new glasses or whatever, I’ll have to add my own comments.

When I got back home, I set up my Stadia and tried to load up Destiny 2, but encountered an error. Clint said the game servers crashed earlier today, which made me feel better about it not being a Stadia issue, but I still didn’t get a chance to play anything before I had to run to Summer’s to get the girls. Autumn had a date to go bowling, and the rest of the family chaperoned. The boy seemed nice, though awkward and possibly a bit outwardly immature for a 17-year-old. It was a good time though, and a couple girls I knew came up and bowled next to us. Taylor mentioned their annual Halloween party and said she would have to make sure I got the invite next year, and before they left I had to point Alex out to Summer because she didn’t really recognize me as the one who bought their Grom.

The girls went to bed pretty quickly once we got home. I sat down to re-skin my Pixel 2 XL, and got the new screen protector on as well. Then I lost myself in Zenni Optical for a while before heading to sleep.

I had forgotten how beautiful this bare phone is.

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Magic Screams 2019

Summer went to get the girls this morning after spending the night with friends, and I went home to clean up and get ready for our trip to Magic Springs. We left right around lunch time and headed down to Hot Springs to meet Ronda, Steven, and Maleea at Outback Steakhouse. We got behind some pretty slow traffic for the majority of the trip, so we ended up getting there quite a bit after them. The service was pretty great when we did get there though, and it was pretty funny how much bread we were going through.

After we ate, we headed to the park. Along the way, something flew up over the car ahead of us and gave me a pretty big chip in the windshield. I’ll have to get that fixed immediately so it doesn’t get worse. The park was fun, and Summer let us talk her into riding all the roller coasters. Eaddie really enjoyed them, and she and Maleea had a good time together. I couldn’t fit into the restraints for the X-Coaster, so Summer ended up riding that one without me. At the end of it all, our last wait was a ridiculously slow, short line for the bumper cars. They only had six cars, and hardly anyone doubled up.

Steven wanted to treat some of Ronda’s family to dinner, so gathered up the convoy and headed to Rod’s Pizza Cellar. We got there not long before closing, but the service was great there too, and the pizza was amazing. We got a 17″ spinach bacon alfredo that was by far our favorite at the table. It was the perfect end to a great day. On the way out of town, we stopped for some more spring water. The drive back home had me exhausted, but we made it in one piece past dozens of deer by the road. Now I’m excited to go again in the summer.

3 spoopy 5 me!

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On Free Hosting

Yesterday I showed up at work expecting a meeting and didn’t get one, and instead spent my day being productive with Brice. Today I did not expect much of a meeting, but everyone was at the shop and Jason was in a talking mood. He didn’t have any actual team-related meeting stuff to say though, and he basically talked about things with individual techs while the rest of us sat around staring at one another.

I stuck around the shop all morning, accomplished a few things that needed to be done, and then spent a considerable time trying to make my email signature look better for the Gmail app dark mode that was recently activated for my phone. It’s been a minor annoyance seeing so many emails come in expecting a white background, and I didn’t want mine to be one of those for anyone else sporting dark mode.

Just before lunch, I decided to go to the high school to get some laptops for Jason to take to central office. Zach was headed that way to look at some doors, so we just rode together. I got a couple more things done, and then we met back at the shop. He, Allen, and I convinced Gary to come along with us to Ruby Tuesday for $5 salads. The food was really good today, and Gary got a really good looking quesadilla. He seems to eat a whole lot of those. Ronda came strolling in with a crew from the junior high as well.

After lunch, I had a call with Jamf about my iPad Pro again. This was the second or third tier of support, and the guy was super friendly and super helpful, though we still didn’t get the issue completely resolved before we were let off work at 3:30. I got home closer to 4 and trimmed the shrimp tank some more. I wanted to sit down and play some games again, but I just kind of zoned out watching the tank. It really has become my zen place.

When Summer got home, I left to get some gas and met the girls at their house for dinner. The girls went to bed pretty early, and then Summer and I watched two more episodes of Battlestar Galactica. With only two more left to watch, I’ll have to dig into the extra content that was added to that universe over the years. I know there are a bunch of webisodes as well as a couple really long special features.

To end the evening, I sat down to write this blog entry when I found my site had been turned off again for overuse of system resources. That still doesn’t seem possible, but I figured I’d gotten enough out of 000webhost for free. I don’t mind so much upgrading to some paid hosting, even for a do-nothing site that I maintain for my own entertainment. The migration to Hostinger was relatively smooth, and at a buck a month it’s really not bad for a four-year term.

The shape of dreams half-remembered. Slip the surly bonds of Earth and touch the face of perfection.

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That Spiked Pear Tree Can Burn

We slept in a bit today, then got up to a couple episodes of Battlestar Galactica before lunch. I started craving Taco Bell and needed to run a couple errands, so the yard work waited a bit longer. I should have known I was in for trouble when I couldn’t get the Taco Bell app to work again. I’ve still got quite a bit of money wrapped up in e-gift cards in the app, and I can’t use them because the app won’t keep me signed in. When I finally gave up and went to the counter to order and pay, it took them 24 minutes to get our food out to us. They were pretty busy with a couple vans worth of kids there, but the wait was still unreal.

After eating, we went to Lowe’s to dispose of some CFL bulbs and then wandered around a bit to check out any seasonal clearances. They had some blinds outside that the lady practically wanted to give away, but we couldn’t find any the right size. Next was a quick stop at Walmart to return the globe light bulbs I picked up last night because they were too big to fit inside my fixtures. I didn’t much care for the color anyway.

When we finally got back home, we went out back to start cleaning up the yard. It took me a while to get a fire going because it just wasn’t getting any airflow without any breeze at all, but I finally got it going well enough to burn down my ant-infested stump. As we wound down, Summer went home to clean up as I tended the coals, then I cleaned myself up and waited for her return. She brought a bunch of salad stuff over, I chopped up some dinner, and we ended the night with some surprisingly sappy Parks and Rec for a lighter evening.

Goodbye Ann. I have enjoyed parts of our time together.

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Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

Summer took Eaddie to school this morning while I went home to clean up. Then I picked her and Autumn up to go back to Children’s so we could commit to a surgery date. Talking to the doctor and the train of other staff didn’t seem to take that long since we kept moving from one place to another. I don’t think I’ve ever waited as long there as I do at my own doctor’s office. Autumn got some new crutches and got to practice going up and down stairs.

With a surgery date planned, we made our way across town in the rain to get some food. I picked Chuy’s at first, but then changed my mind as we passed Genghis Grill. I’d always wanted to try that place, so we pulled around the block and found our way in. It was pretty quiet but cramped inside, without a lot of room between tables. Autumn had an absolute fit about not liking Chinese food, which was half the fun for me. We picked out our daddy, mommy, and baby-sized bowls and made our way through the selection of raw ingredients and seasoning. Even my large bowl seemed really small to me, especially since I know how much the vegetables cook down in size. I wanted way more vegetables, but just couldn’t fit any more into the bowl.

Even Autumn really liked her end result of rice, ham, and smoked sausage. We’ve got to get her on some vegetables somehow, and I want so badly to play mean. Teaching kids the food pyramid doesn’t do a damned thing if you don’t enforce it.

We made our way home pretty quickly, stopping briefly for some drinks. I got some Mango Wheat Blue Moon that I’m anxious to try, along with something else that came in what was designed to look like a bottle of lighter fluid. We had to stop by my house so Autumn could change, and then we went straight to the high school for her marching competition. After all these years, I finally got to see her spin her flag around, so I can say first hand that she doesn’t always just walk around with it by her side.

We ended up spending more time waiting for her back at the junior high than it took for us to see the junior high compete. Then we went to the Neighborhood Market for some additions to dinner at home. Autumn neglected to bring her uniform bag out of my house, so we had to run and get it on the way back to their house. I cooked up some chicken for sandwiches, and then Summer and I watched a couple more episodes of Battlestar Galactica before bed.

They needed a home, so they set out in the void of deep space with nothing but their ships and their guts.