Todays entry brought to you in part by the number...

Yup thats right 25. I just called Gamestop and thats where I stand on the xbox 360 pre-order list. 25 its a long ways down and the sales guy said "sorry but I really doubt we will get to you before christmas." Which kinda sucks but hey those are the breaks right. SO ebay seems totally off and me getting one probably still wont happen for quite some time. As of now my store has gotten 12 total units since the 22. 10 for launch and a second shipment of a whopping 2. With the big 300,000 shipment this weekend I think my store might see 10 again but even if they got 20 which is a huge stretch it still wouldnt matter. After this shipment I think its back to 2-4 every other week or so. SO yeah it bites. I think I will still keep looking around at other places to get one since it could be mid to end of january before I would ever see my pre-order filled. Seeing as it has taken almost a month to knock the list down a whopping 12 spaces.

weekend wrap up

Well its monday morning so I thought I would give a wee update on whats been going on as of late.
1st up im still doing the bachelor thing as my wife is not yet back from chattanooga and it could be tuesday or wednesday of this week before she makes it back. SO just a side note if you could pray that she is able to come back sooner rather than later I would appreciate it. I miss my baby : (

2nd my weekend has been crazy busy. I swear I had a honey do list like you wouldnt believe and I am still not done with it. It included last minute x-mas shopping, grocery shopping, cleaning, watering plants, and a score of other things that were very time consuming. All in all I have been working pretty hard this weekend and still feel like I have TONS to do.

3 - I am even more inthe x-mas spirit now in that I spent 3 hours wrapping presents on saturday night (another item on the long list) and yes again I did it all without the aid of one single track of x-mas music. BWUAHAHAHAHA!!! Yes it was another technotrancified night of slammin tracks to get my wrap on.

4 - Now on to me in general. Im in a surprisingly good mood. Its kinda funny how when you are the type of person who does not normally feel pulled to one side or the other on the mood scale to feel particularly drawn to one side. But I am. In a good mood that is. I have been so for a number of days so if you wanna see what im like in a good mood heres your chance! On a related note its very interesting to me to see how much weather affects your body and especially your mental state and its delicate (im)balance. It is truly amazing how God has engineered us to adapt and overcome our environment without us even noticing. However if for whatever reason you have say an imperfection that needs to be supplemented its more easy to see these things. Ok I know im not making sense so here goes. I take a hormone supplement for my thyroid as it is "Hypo" which means underactive. Well in general it works pretty well but unlike the human body it doesnt change and react the way it should since it is a fixed amount. Case in point my mind was a huge washboard of infinity on friday. I swear I could not focus at all on like a single thought. Its kinda frustrating but like I said it just shows me more and more how amazing a design we as humans are and how Amazing God is for what he has done. What really got me thinking about this was a trip to wal mart. OMG I swear I had like 3 things I needed to find at walmart and I walked into the store and I was like. ummm. Why I am here again??? SO I just started wandering around the store in hopes that I would see something that would jog the mind back into sync. Well I noticed a department and was like right I need to go there for x y and z. SO I walked the 20 feet to get there and then was like. CRAP! why did I need to come here again. This happened for each of the three items of which I was searching for and was at times very very frustrating. But like I said im in a good mood! SO go figure

5 - wee game update - Ok I have totally given up on getting a 360 anytime before xmas and it wouldnt really matter at this point if I got one say next week b/c its not like I have any games for it and I hear that block buster isnt renting them yet. SO no biggy in my mind.

xbox - lisa and I started to play fatal frame 2 again and we are digging on it Also DOA rules. I love that game which is weird b/c I have never ever liked fighters. But I really look forward to my 10-15 min fix each day

ps2 - need to get back to god of war and finish that one up.

psone - playing FFIX and loving it. I had gotten a good start on it but then put it down for a number of months during the mistake that was ".hack" but now I am back playing it and really digging on it. More on that later.

Well thats about it for my weekend. Sunday was sad in that it was the last sunday for our pastor to be our full time pastor. He is going to be a missionary in the Ukraine and though I am so jazzed and excited for him he will be greatly missed. It also kinda sucks b/c im on the pulpit committee and we are charged with finding someone as good as Dan. I think the congregation is going to have some pretty lofty expectations.

Well thats it for now.

cheers!

Im getting into the Christmas Spirit!

Well the other day lisa dropped the bomb on me that she wanted to put up our tree this year which we had before agreed to bypass. I know I know were awefull people. WHATEVER! SO in any event she decided she would really like it up and felt that it would be nice. SO I was like oke doke. WELLLLL I decided I would surprise her yesterday and while she was gone I put the tree up myself so it would be done when she got home. IT was a lot of work but it was worth it and it also did manage to help get me in the christmas mood. However my tree trimming was and is probably different from a lot of other peoples in that their was NO christmas music playing at all. None nadda zilch zero. Thats right instead I kicked it up a notch and got my tree rocking to some choice tunes like:

first up was a cd of stuff Jason did a loooong time ago (like 2-3 years) and I have not listened to it in a long time. Or on a system that could thump some decent bass I might add. It was sweet and I still have to say that Jason your version of radio babylon is my absolute favorite. This means a lot since radio babylon is one of my favorite MBM songs and your mix is like I said my fav. Their was also a track on their that was not done by jason but a friend of his and its based around transformers. Now I grew up hooked on those things and I had forgotten a little line from the begining of the show that goes something like this "In the year 2005 the treacherous decepticons have conquered the autobot home world of cybertron." Dang I feel old b/c all the stuff happening in the show was supposed to be happening this year!!! SO watch out people b/c this is the month the Autobots are going to land!

Next up was a cd of JPOP that I have again not listened to in forever. Lots of great songs and was really what got me tuned into Jpop and the likes of Ayumi Hamasaki (ayu) and Boa. Since then I have acquired many Ayu cds and am a big fan.

After that was a really good cd I made of trance tracks that I really like. And thats how I finished out the evening.

SO a tree was assembled and trimmed and not a lick of christmas music was played. I consider that to be a good evening.

On another note the japan trip is now cancelled which means that the prospects for a wild and rowdy dead or alive tournament are now more up in the air as lisa will now be home when I was thinking of doing it. However I will still see what I can do to at least have some people over to kick it.

thats it for now. Oh I ate twice yesterday!!!!! I think im over this thing!!!!!!

Cheers!

Dang that hurt!

Ok so wow as some of you already no I got hit with the insanely cruel stomach virus that has been going around these parts last week. What was really weird was I felt great on monday and had a really good run but nothing could prepare me for how I would feel tuesday when I woke up. I wont go into all the wonderfull details but I felt as if I was being constantly punched in the stomach for about 3 days. Tuesday I didnt eat anything at all and I drank about half a glass of 7-up. Wed I was feeling a little bit better and ate a hot dog and some other stuff. Thursday again felt like crap. Ate next to nothing if anything and tried to drink a lot of fluids b/c I was getting dehydrated. Friday was feeling better didnt eat anything till the evening which was a mistake. I was feeling good and steak and shake really appealed to me. Well it tasted good but It was too soon. Saturday I literally ate 3 wendys chicken nuggets. I couldnt finish a $.99 5 piece on my own! Sunday I ate my other 2 nuggets and another hot dog. sO now we are at monday and im feeling better but I am still really really weak from lack of food so I really need to try and eat something today. SO thanks to everyone who prayed for me to feel better.

Well I still have no xbox 360 so that is something that I dont have to worry about and other than that on the gaming front my recent sickness provided me with gobs and gobs of time to start and almost finish Jade Empire which so far has been pretty cool. will write more later but I have some stuff I need to do for now.

Cheers!

quick updatage (if that is even a word and if it aint then tough)

Ok so like heres the big news of the weekend --



TA DA!!! we got a new car / truck / whatever! Its pretty cool and so far has been a lot of fun to drive. You might be asking yourself what is it??? well let me tell you what it is. A 2005 Hyundai Tucson LX in blue with a light grey / beigy leather interior. It has a moonroof and a v6 engine and most importantly BUTT WARMERS!!!! yeah its pretty posh. It also has an in dash 6 disc cd changer that is supposed to be able to do mp3's but I have not gotten that to work yet. Oh and it it also supposed to have a subwoofer to kick out the freaky bass which I have also not tried yet due mostly to the fact that I have not gotten a chance to drive it alone yet and will not be able to really kick the funky tunage until then. SO thats pretty cool ya. I was able to trade the VW in on it and got a whopping $1000 dollar trade on that. I feal so violated by that car it isnt even funny. However I feel that I have at least "pulled one over" or "gottten even" with the car dealer as there are a TON of things wrong with that car and for them to be able to sell it for what I know they are going to they are going to have to fix a lot of stuff to make the car sellable. SO They may have thought they screwed me but I got them just as good!!!! (insert evil laughter) SO anyway I am happy to be rid of the piece o crap Vdub that I had and its nice to have a brand spanking new car in the garage that is at the moment problemless. SO thats that

Other than that had a pretty good T-giving hanging out with my folks and just chilling out. Lisa and I did do something that we have here to for not done. That being we went shopping friday morning. Ya see we looked through all the pamphlets and flyers and stuff from thursday and discovered that their were quite a lot of things that we were looking for at staples that were either free or dramatically reduced in price. SO we decided to get up early and get their when they opened their doors at -- sigh-- 6am. OITS that was early and freaking cold but it was worth it and we got all the stuff we were shooting for. The funny thing is that we got like I dont know 7 diff items and only two of them were meant as gifts for other people. The others were things we had needed but just put off getting like a paper shredder which we got and will be free after its rebate so it was a worthy trip. I think were getting something like 100 bucks back in rebates so we did save quite a bit or we will I should say. After that we met up with Sue and went to the mall b/c lisa saw a flyer for parisian with some boots she wanted and I gotta say they are pretty hot boots. I like lisa in heels and shes wearing them more and more now and I have to say I think Jeans look really good with heels. I guess im getting older I dont know. SO whatever we then went and grabbed some lunch. went home and then went to go get the car which took 3 hours longer than it should have. I swear it was like hello we are trying to give you money perhaps you could do something slightly faster than you are. Oh well we have it and its done now. Then on Sat. we had Sue and Scott Damerow over to watch Napolean Dynamite which my parents had not seen and I hate to admit it but that movie gets funnier the more times you watch it. That was my second time and I found myself in giddy anticipation over such scenes like napolean $%@^$ slaps kip, or kip runs over the tupperware. Many many classicly good scenes and then other I had totally forgotten about like when the old guy shoots the cow which is PRICELESS. SO it was a good time. Then on Sunday I got to hear my Dad preach which is a very very rare treat for me so that was nice as well. Alas though its monday and Im back to the grind and life is back to normal. At least for the next three weeks until the 16th of december when lisa - sue - and sara (aka max) go to the land of the rising FUN! to get their tourist thing on for a week. At which time their will be a lot of pizza and even more gaming. SO stop by! Maybe I will finaly get to have a real 4 person death match in metal arms!!!!! Or a DOA tournament. Could be cool. Thats all for now

Cheers!

A new dillema

Ok I know I said that I didnt think I would update again till after thanksgiving but hey X-mas comes early this year what can I say! Ok so if you have been following my site you know a couple of things.

1.) I am getting an X360
2.) Their is a high probability I will have it before x-mas

This has now presented me with a new dillema. Do I keep it or do I sell it on e-bay and then buy one perhaps in march when the market is more normalized??? Heres my quandry if you will. Right now I have the big bundle on reserve and that costs 400+ tax = 426 which will be my cost. Right now your going uh huh get to the point ok spunk monkey keep ya knick knacks on. If you go to ebay and check the current prices of x360's the average price they are going for today is $1050.00+ 40 for shipping. Thats close to a $600 dollar profit for not doing anything at all and would more than cover the cost of a new 360 + an extra controller and a few games from my new pal darren (thanks buddy!) Now my mind is moving on to even more enterprising ideas. right now the hype on e-bay is initial launch hype which I would expect to go down. But my friends we live in a land of stupid adults. Adults who are at the mercy of their children and who feel they have one shot each year to appease the little devils just a little bit and that day is x-mas. SO my point is if a x360 will sell for 1050-1200 today what will it sell for the week before x-mas when they are no where to be found???? Most major game stores are already saying if you dont have a pre-order dont even ask until feb. In fact gamestop is now taking pre-orders again for x360 with a ship date of feb 28th!!! The quantities are that limited. I cant even imagine how much they will be going for the week before x-mas but I have to think it will be in the range of $1500-2000 and that people will be fighting for them like moms were fighting for cabbage patch dolls back in the 80's. SO like I said my dillema. Should I get it and hold out on e-bay to see what the prices are like and then sell it if I can clear $600-1000+ or do I embrace the next gen technology and bask in the fact that I have something cool before so many other peopl do. Its a tough call for sure but I gotta tell you I think I might reserve a ps3 right now just thinking about whats happening now.

Cheers!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well I doubt that I will get a chance to post up again before wed. SO I thought I would throw a little plug in for thanksgiving and wish everyone well. Its tuesday and I have been very very busy at work which I have to say my perception of time is very skewed b/c I felt like it had only been like this for few months and I just spent some time looking back over old blog entries and this really has been a crapy year for me work wise in terms of volume and stress so hooray for blogs as they help to keep me well seated in the realms of time and space! SO anyway I am very excited about this week as my parents are coming in for a visit which will be nice to have them here. And their is a possiblity that they might be coming to stay with us for a few months which would also be pretty kewl as well. Who knows maybe I can even get my dad into video games! Trying to think about anything else that is happening. Oh I have officially had it with my car. Yes last friday getting up for work I started driving and didnt get out of my sub before I realized I had a flat. GARRRRRR so I changed that and was late for work. double GARRRRR. Now I realize that flat tires happen. Perhaps thats my new t-shirt idea "flats happen" ne way thats now copyrighted so dont even think about taking the idea ^_^ neway I realize these things happen however it was not a simple nail or something like that. No my car had worn off the ENTIRE INSIDE EDGE of the tire down to the steel threads which kept sticking me in my fingers and hurting quite badly. SO I have never seen this before and if you look back to May you can see that I posted about buying new tires and they have less than 15000 miles on them! GARRRRR. SO yes I have officially had it with this car. IT is Wic by definition. Well I have tons to do but again happy t-day and everyone try to get some much needed rest and relaxation over the next few days.

Cheers!

Xbox 360????Where are you?????

Ok so I have some news regarding the whole xbox 360 thing for anyone who cares. Sorry hannah but hey if your reading this you never e-mailed me so there. neway SO back a few weeks when Jason and Momo were here Jason dropped the bomb on me that he was going to cancel his 360 pre-order for what will remain undisclosed reasons. SO of course my first reaction was AH CRAP! there goes my chance to kick around on one for a week. But then my sweet lovely wife said well maybe you can get it. This came as what has to be stated as a total shock and so I said ok we can think about it. Well after a few weeks we talked about it last night and Lisa said it could be my X-mas / B-day present from her! SO WOOT im getting a 360! SO I was all excited and jazzed about that and then I got a phone call last night from Game Stop (which is where my pre-order is) which basically said. YO we aint getting nearly the # of 360's we thought we was gittin so dont expect to see one this x-mas and you might be waiting till the beggining of next year 'click' (ya see I added the click b/c it was a recording). SO I was like DOH! so I called my game stop today and asked for a more realistic status and heres what I got. I am #32 on the list of pre-orders. They originally thought they were going to be getting roughly 25 units a week up until x-mas. SO before they thought I was a 2nd week candidate. However they have been informed its going to be more like 10 units for my store at launch (DUDE!) and they have not been given any promises in terms of shipments after that. SO he said yeah I think we should be able to get yours in by x-mas but Its still hard to say. I basically got the feeling that this guy knew his store was getting 10 units and that anything outside of that, that shows up each week will be a super duper suprise. SO as it stands right now I will be getting one however who knows when that will be. Also some other circumstances are possibly popping up that might make the wifesky say uh no to the whole thing. SO I guess in the end I really didnt have anythign new to say but yet I said a lot. But I take that back. SO neway thats my "big" news. SO this brings up another question what to do with the ol xbox??? I still have a lot of games that I like to play on it and assuming that half will work on the 360 is that enough to keep the old one around? Also say all my games work thats cool but all my level saves and what not are still on my xbox and I dont think the memory cards are cross platform compatible. SO that brings up another problem in that like for example Kung Fu Chaos I worked my butt off to unlock everything in that game. Do I keep it and do that all over again or just say whatever and trade in all my xbox games and xbox. SO let me know what you guys think.

Cheers!

New Phone!!!!

Yes I have finaly entered into a more modern Era of Cell Phone. No it does not have a camera or an MP3 player or a video camera but it does have a color screen and it can do MP3 ringtones and that aint bad. This phone also knows about a little thing called java so I can load some cool apps on it as well. SO how did this come about??? Well my old phone an i60c (which sucked) starting having an issue about 6 months ago that I finally got tired of living with and it got tired of living with me so it just stopped working. SO this morning I went and picked up my new phone!!!! I am still running the stock settings but over the next day or so I think I should have it pretty customized to my liking which will be nice. SO the two new feature that I love about this phone are these.

1.) it has a display on the front that tells the time but more importantly does caller ID. My old phone did not have that and it sucked to have to answer the phone and find out you didnt want the call.

2.) I can add a custom ringtone which might seem trite but hey if you have ever had a generic nextel phone (like an i60c) then you know that LOTS of people have nextel phones and a lot of people have the same ring and that gets really annoying to be in a crowded area think your phone keeps going off. SO that will be a nice change.

quick game update
PS2 Lisa and I finished xenosaga which I dont even think I mentioned we had started but I have to say it was pretty awesome. Really deep story and really good gameplay. Total time start to finish for us was a fantastic 65 hours!!! which for the investment of 14.99 comes out to a rough .23 cents an hour cost for entertainment. Imagine if you could see a second run movie for 50 cents. Other than that I am playing god of war for PS2 as well which should make Jason happy. SO far im almost all the way through athens and the game is pretty amazing. the graphics and speed are really good and really fast. SO far im having fun with it and since its borrowed the cost per hour of enjoyment is $0.00 / hour which is even a better deal then Xenosaga!

Oh did I mention a little thing called Xbox 360 launches next week! I wonder how many my store will get and what wave of pre order I will be. Right now I think I am solidly in 2nd round which would be the following week but I think their is always a chance I could get first round as well. my number is I think 31. SO we shall see.

Ok well their ya go ankle biters I updated. Excuse me for being busy at work and Sick all in the same week!!! J/K

cheers!

Atmosphere is everything

Ok if you have read my blog at all then you know Lisa and I are BIG fans of the silent hill series. In fact after lisa's recent birthday we now have every game in the series which is pretty cool since it spans 3 different consoles. SO far we have played through 1 (on psone) 2 (xbox) 4 (xbox) and just recently got 3 for PS2. SO what does this have to do with anything??? Well they are making a movie out of the game and that has me pretty excited. Now for the most part I think Movies based on video games are pretty weak. Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Doom are all pretty much just action flicks that get a lot of negative press and to that I say "what did you expect?" The games are not very story centric and are mostly action and that is why the silent hill movie has me excited. The silent hill games are very deep in story and try to scare you by messing with your senses. For example in most of the games they really promote a feeling that you are alone in what could be considered your own worst nightmare so their is very little interaction with other people. However at times everything will be very quiet and out of no where you will hear screams of horror and pain that arent coming from you or are they? Its very psychological and I think thats what has made these games so good in the first place. SO that being said I feel their is a lot to build off of to make a good movie out of one of them and the edition of the game they chose is ranking up there as my favorite so im even more jazzed. Silent Hill 1 is what started the series and so far imo had the best and most conclusive storyline. And just had a well planned out plot to begin with. SO look for it next april as Im sure it should be pretty good. Providing they stick with the story and the atmosphere that the games try to create and from the looks of the pic above they have it dead on.

cheers

PEOPLE WHO LIE SUCK!

ok thats the gist of my post. Yup that about sums it up they suck big time. I dont know why its so hard to give a truthfull factual answer in some cases but hey if it nets you a sale then its ok right? SO in short I made a very specific request to a vendor. They said yeah we can do that. They sold me something. And when it came it does not do what I need it to do. Not to go on and on so I will be brief but I still need part X and it appears it does not come in the flavor of which I was requesting (so they say, however they already lied to me onces about it) What really sucks is this puts me in a terribly bad place between my customer and my vendor who has now basically shot me in the foot. SO in general work life is all about the suckage for me!

Happy B-day to you!

Well shes probably going to kill me for using this pic but its the best and cutest close up shot I had of her and although I could have done a crop job on the pic and just included her face I think this is a really cute pic of My darling dear wife. SO as you may be guessing Its my honeys b-day and well I think that should be grounds enough to declaring a national holiday. Thats right instead of halloween it can now be International Lisa Knodel day. What you thought I would just limit her observance to the US??? BAH I think shes amazing enough to be observed the world over. Even in Canada and Madagascar. And yes for those of you who think Madagascar is a place invented for a disney movie YOUR WRONG ITS A REAL PLACE!!!! Sorry anyway so I thought I would help celebrate this great accomplishment with a dedicated blog entry so here we go.

Lisa is the most amazing and wonderfull woman I think I have ever known. She ceases to suprise me on a daily basis and I think she is absolutly wonderfull. She can make me happy just by seeing her smile and she always seems to know if something is bothering me or if I need a hug. In short shes amazing and I feel overly blessed to have her in my life.

SO happy birthday Sweetie. You mean the world to me and I couldnt wake up in the morning without you. You complete me and make me so happy. I love you so much and have a great day. Just to be cute I looked up ways to say happy b-day in other cultures. SO here we go with my favs!

Gaelic (scottish) Co` latha breith sona dhuibh!
german Alles Gute zum Geburtstag!
hawaiian Hau`oli la hanau!
japanese Otanjou-bi Omedetou Gozaimasu!
klingon Quchjaj qoSlIj!
latin Fortuna dies natalis!
maltese Nifrahlek ghal gheluq sninek!
swahili Hongera! or Heri ya Siku kuu!
zulu Ilanga elimndandi kuwe!

Again Happy Birthday Sweeheart!

cheers!

The Results are In!

Ok just in case you were wondering the official results are in for the race and I did a little cut and past so you can see my time

Place Div/Tot  No.   Name           Age Sex City     St Time  Pace
===== ======== ===== ============== === === ======== == ===== =====
569   37/69    1158  CHRIS KNODEL   27  M   FRANKLIN OH 26:35  8:35

Ok so like I said before this is pretty acurate of what I was thinking however my guess that there were like 500 runners was grossely underestimated. Lets try a total of 1925 runners and walkers. WOW that was a huge start. If you want to see the results for yourself check em out here.

Im slow but im not that slow

Well I did it I ran the 5k last night and im happy I did it. Its funny how competing can help you learn more about yourself and thats probably why I enjoy doing stuff like that. SO on to my post race wrap up!

I got to the site about 6pm feeling pretty good and that I had a lot of time and well I was a little wrong. I really wished I had gotten there maybe 15 min earlier as that would have given me some time to do some real stretching but oh well I know for next time. I got my race packet and my shirt which was really nice and a suprise. You dont expect to get a long sleeve fleece sweatshirt for a 15 dollar registration fee but thats what we got. Plus the logo is cool and I think I will actually wear this as opposed to the mountain of event t-shirts that I have never worn after the event. SO I did a little bit of a warm up and then went to the starting line. Well I guess I should say the starting pack b/c I couldnt even see the line. Im guessing there were somewhere around 500 runners and walkers and I think I was probably in the middle of the pack somewhere. This was totally crazy and probably one of the biggest events I have ever been in so that was kinda neat at first. Well they started at 6:30 on the dot but my start was a little delayed. See if you think of it like a traffic jam just because the cops say you can go doesnt mean everyone moves at the same time. SO I would have to say that it was a good 30-45 seconds before I even started to run. yeah thats right some im not sure what my exact time is yet and they have not posted the results so I will have to wait for that bit of intel. SO I will break this into segments from here on out

Mile 1
Feeling really good a little cold but mostly comfortable. The first mile was really spent dodging people and trying to find ways around other slow people which was quite the challenge.

first mile split 8:30ish

Mile 2
At this point the pack had really thinned out and I was feeling good about my pace I had lots of room to move and didnt feel boxed in anymore. I was still passing more people than were passing me which is a good feeling and helps to keep the spirits up. I felt really happy with my first mile split knowing that I probably went under 8 for my first mile and my goal of sub 25 would be reachable if I kept this pace.

second mile split 17:30ish

Mile 3
At this point I was starting to feel very hot and the clothes that I was wearing to run in are meant to keep the heat in and not really breath all that much. The temps were supposed to be upper 30's low 40's so it seemed like a good call and for the first 2 miles I was happy with that but now that I was in mile 3 I was over heating. The cold air was also having its usual effect on me which means I start having difficulty breathing so things started going down hill for me. I also noticed that I was losing ground to the people I had been keeping pace with as well as more people were starting to pass me and I was not really overtaking anyone anymore. I have to say this mile is where I really gave up on myself and started to have difficulties. SO I tried to give myself my usual pep line which is "what if this was the ironman. would you slow down then? would you want to quit?" I suprised myself by instantly thinking "yeah right like Im ever going to do one" SO I was really feeling beaten mentally and then HA HA it started to rain. I told lisa earlier in the day I might not do the run at all as I do not like running in the dark the rain or the cold which is looked like I might get all of these in one run so all that together really started to put me in a downer if ya know what I mean. Also I thought the course was going to go one way and it didnt it made another small loop which added more distance and that hit me hard mentally thinking that I would be done very soon and realizing I still had quite a bit more to do.

3 mile split - unknown no clock at 3 mile mark

race finish

Ok this was the point where everything gets better I mean c'mon who cant run 1 tenth of a mile. SO I had been keeping pace with this one girl and she was in a racoon costume (people were encouraged to dress up) and halfway through mile 3 I decided I was not going to get beat by a girl in a racoon costume so I stayed with her all the way till the end and I had more of a kick then she did so I did manage to beat her. WOOO HOO I beat a girl in a racoon costume! The end of the race was really bad in the the chute was very small and you went from a full on sprint to a dead stop which my body told me it did not like. I did manage to keep it all together but at that moment I realized I probably pushed my body as hard as it was going to go that night. SO I guess that was good. and what you have all been waiting for!!!!

Final time 26:30ish

I was not happy at the time but now the more I think of it im pretty happy. If I adjust that for the start that puts me in the 25 min range which is very close to where I wanted to be. Also this is the first time I have run for a time since my last operation on my leg and my time was better than before I had my operation so thats cool. all in all it figures out to be an avg mile time of somewhere between 8:20-30 which I can live with. Im most dissapointed however in how I gave up mentally with only a mile to go. I think life in general has contributed to my attitude being more negative I just didnt realize how negative it was. SO thats something I need to work on as well.

Well I hope everyone enjoyed getting in my head a little bit with this run. And like I said im really glad I did it and I think im going to start trying to do more of this type of thing again.

well thats all for now
Cheers!

Oh fyi the reason I was bumming about my time is my Personal best for a 5k is 17:41 and my time is light years away from that one. SO it sucks but it takes time to get good again and I just need to be patient.

Not much new

Well its about 8:am and I am at work already but to my despair it is still dark outside. I really dislike the winter time waking up in the dark and having it be an hour or 2 before the sun comes out -- If it comes out -- SO whos ready for an Indian Summer??? I know I am. Well this entry is going no where fas so I will do a quick wrap up of how things are going for me.

Work -- I have officially reached the point where I just dont care and dont feel like making an effort will change anything anyways so my motivation level is nill. ^__^ but im happy with that!

Life in general -- Didnt get to take a day off this week to go climbing which sucked b/c tuesday was about as perfect a day as we could have asked for. I have however gotten to ride my motor bike twice this week down to cinci which means extended ride time and that has been nice. The weather is turning more cold here, I think they said it dropped like 20 degrees from tuesday to wed so that sucks. The weather here never seems to know what it wants to do but it sure enjoys drastic changes! Other than that not much else. Oh I played football again this week but my left quad was really knotted up and still is. I actually resorted to a heating pad last night which feels like it has helped a lot. I have also tried my limited knowledge of deep tissue massage on myself which by itself is difficult but on yourself is really hard to succeed in. Other than that im gearing up for lisa's b-day which is the 31st. I have already purchased many good things for her which I could list off here since she never reads my blog but just in case she does check it I will keep it anonymous. One thing that was frustrating was I ordered her something that we will call x. I ordered x in color y. what I got was a. in color b. a. looks nothing in the world like x. SO I had to call and they said oops yeah we have a wrong number in the catalog so our bad. But I still have to mail back the old one so thats kinda stinky. But once thats done I should be done with my shopping for her. SO thats cool. We really need to start our x-mas shopping which we have not even begun yet. I hate waiting till after thanksgiving as most shopping establishments are filled with instant nut jobs as soon as thanksgiving ends. ITs like on thursday the nation collectively says "Dear Lord thank you for all you have done for us" then on friday the nation turns into a bunch of blood thirsty scavengers saying "no its mine I saw it first" SO anyway the only other thing I got going on is a signed up for a 5k this tuesday. Lisa said she might be able to make it which would mean she could try out her new digi cam and take some action shots of me getting my run on. My goal that I am posting here is to come in under 25 minutes. That would put me right around 8 minute mile pace and I would be happy with that. Ideally I would like to break the 20 minute mark but I dont think I can pull 6's just yet.

Gaming update -- Well I have a ton of games to take back to the game store for trade and I have made my pick on what I am going to get with the credit. Xenosaga. IT looks really cool and should be pretty deep. I am really on the fence about DOA ultimate. I dont know why but Im just totally drawn to this game. I have never liked fighters before but soul caliber really turned me on to it and I think the DOA series is a lot cooler than soul caliber. SO I have been thinking about what I would do while all the girls are in Japan and Im kinda thinking DOA tournament at my house. Could be fun. Even more so if none of us really knows how to play! SO just kicking that idea out now. Other than that I have not gotten a chance to play hardly anything this week. I think I am giving up on .hack I just dont care enough anymore about it and would rather play xenosaga or FFX-2.

Well thats all for now -- Oh missions conference this weekend please come as it makes me look bad if nobody shows up and then I will be sad and well thats not good.

Cheers!

Human Nature

Its funny how human nature instinctively longs to do the things which it knows it should not do. Case in point my last blog entry. I knew that saying "do not post" would elicit many posts. I have deleted 3 so far and let me say that no I am not mad or being anal. I just think its funny and it got me thinking about signs like the one I put up here. Its like if you tell me not to feed the bears it just makes me want to feed them that much more. SO thats what got me on the whole idea of the fastest way to get someone to do something is to tell them not to do it. Ok nobody better even think about giving me a million dollars. If you dare give me a million dollars i''l bite your face off ya got it! (somehow I doubt that will work but hey nothing ventured nothing gained) anyway so that train of thought led me to that wonderfull Episode of Ren and Stimpy where Ren charges Stimpy to guard the history eraser button and to make sure that nobody touches it ever. Why??? Because maybe it will be good, Maybe it will be bad we just dont know. SO in the end the weak minded stimpy gives in and pushes the big shiny candy like button and annihilates the universe. So my question today is this??????? Would you have the will power to not annihilate the universe???? or would you give in to temptation and PUSH THE BUTTON!

Cheers!

Oh side note. Saw war of the worlds. thought the effects were groovy thought the story was crap. HEEELLLOOOO we can exist in the vacum of space which implies we understand the concepts of atmospheres and foreign environments but we never thought to protect ourselves on a foreign planet. Nope I would have been happy if even one of the aliens had on one of those little surgical masks b/c at least it would have said "hey maybe theirs something bad here" but no. SO I guees the question of who sent the dumb aliens from signs to the earth has been answered. IT was the dumb aliens from war of the worlds and if you dont get that its b/c they were both totally stupid about trying to conquer a planet that was extremely toxic to them with no protection. I mean c'mon the aliens from signs were bipedal humanoid. How hard would it have been to break into a sporting goods store and steal a wet suit????? Oh wait those have zippers and they couldnt figure out how to open doors.

yeah so Cheers!

This ends here and now

Ok I feel I am a fairly patient person and that I am not easily angered. Usually it takes that rare type of "special" person to push me over the edge and today that has happened. Below I am going to list a comment put on MY blog. I will then list a response to said comment on MY blog and then that will be it. Any comments that are put in response to this will be deleted as soon as I see them. I dont care from whom they are. I will delete them so please dont even bother writting a comment.

After not being around for a few weeks Gary has popped up on my blog again today and this is what he wrote.

An apology is what I want, then maybe I'll back off. Afterall, all these blogs were started by r. via J. and gave links to all of yours'. I was invited initially on r.'s; then made a few stupid comments, then backed off and wrote him by email. Then came these downright scorns at me and my intelligence. Then, when I apologized none of them were ever accepted. Case over, no-win solution. Get over it Gary / g-unit aka the Riddler.

My response.

Gary I have no reason to apologize to you nor will I. I have wronged you in no way and I feel its arrogant and a threat on your part to demand an apology in order for you to "back off" This is my little crapshack in cyper space and I will post what I want to when I want to. I didnt make this site for you gary and I will not be a victim to cyber threats or cyber terrorism on your part.

Im not sure what you mean when you say "all these blogs were started by r. via J." but again this is wrong. I am a computer network engineer. If you read the top of my blog you would know this. I am capable of at least the same computer skillz as your average 12 year old girl therefore I am competant enough to create my own blog apart from Radar and Jason.

Let me say this very clearly. I dont care about your relationship with radar. I dont care about your relationship with Jason. I dont know you. Therefore my blog is not a valid venue for your bickering and yes a mature adult would realize this. Im sorry that you have ticked off jason and radar enough that they have blocked you from their blogs. Again this is not my problem. Again I dont care. Seriously. I flat out just dont care. SO as I said before stop using my blog as your soap box.

On a Similar note -- If radar and jason do not accept your appoligies how is this my issue. I speak to jason over AIM perhaps once a week as he lives in Japan now and radar and I trade comments on blogs once in a great while. Therefore if you are hoping to woo me and then have me subsequently influence either of them you are sadly barking up the wrong tree.

Now as I write this I see you have just posted another comment. SO I will include that in this post. Thank you for your contributions at the start of your post about games and football. Yes those are on topic. Now as I have said before its a free internet im not going to tell anyone they cant come to my blog b/c well I choose not to. However half way through you have again gone off on your own thing claiming to have brought us all together by your refusing to follow simple netiquette. Im sorry dude but you are really really wrong. I still have absolutely no clue who della is but man im glad you know somebody whos name you can drop. Jason and I have known each other for like close to 15 years so I dont think you can take credit for that one and as far as radar goes I think you have only made him feel bad and apologetic to me b/c of your actions. Not exactly lifelong friend building feelings. Oh and yeah did I mention I still have absolutely no clue who della is??????

and those are the final words that I will post on this. Again. It is my desire for this to be over. therefore any comments would only spark more conversation which is why I will delete any comments that are posted to this entry.

cheers

I feel old

Yeah I feel old. I played football with the youngins of my church on thursday and I hate to admit it but im still sore from it. It is amazing how the older you get even if you stay active the less flexible you are and the longer it takes to recover from stuff. I feel im in pretty good shape and despite the fact that I think I would have made a better water boy than running back I still managed to hold my own and keep up with and even out run a few people during the game. SO I dont feel old in that respect I just feel old that Im still sore b/c Im not used to the type of running you get from playing sports like football or soccer. Oh well I just need to keep doing stuff like this so that I dont get sore again! But Im actually pretty excited b/c its fall like weather which is great for doing stuff outside and im actually doing stuff outside!!! Climbing this week and football and it looks like climbing next week and maybe football as well. SO my heart leaps with joy! And im really looking forward to climbing next week as it should be a little warmer and a little dryer and I think im goign to turn up the intensity a little bit and get a little more gutsy and try some BIG moves. Maybe some dynos (jumps) and what not. SO im stoked. Its a great time of year!

Cheers

Oh to comment on steves comment about finishing a game yeah I know some games I just cant bring myself to finish and others I dont think I ever will but somehow I pick it up a year or so later and finish it. Dr. Muto for xbox is one such game I dont think I will ever play again and I should really trade in. I thought that was the case for Ty the tasmanian tiger but I did manage to finish it like 2 years after I started. I really do need to go through my games and get rid of some stuff that I doubt I will ever play again although the last time I did that I really regretted it so now i just hold on to everything.

SO since I have not done this in awhile I will give a brief game update

First off let me say I am playing a lot of different games right now which is pretty cool!

PS2
-- .hack -- which I have already talked about in some detail. SO far the game is to me very repetitive and the story is really lacking.
-- Wallace and Gromit Project zoo -- so far so good. It can be a bear to control and like I said earlier the camera is totally wonky!

PSOne
-- FFIX -- This game is really growing on me and Im really enjoying it. It starts out really cutesy but I have to say despite the way the characters look they are all in some sort of deep struggle with who they are and where they are. It just leads to a very interesting party dynamic and makes the story and game more fun to me. If only .hack had character development like this I might care about at least one of the characters
-- Silent Hill 1 -- Ok we finished this one a while ago but you know what that means??? Alternate ending time!!! SO far we have gotten the good, bad, and bad+ endings and we still need to get the good+ ending and we might shoot for the ufo ending but that requires and entire run through of the game from start to finish and I dont know if I care that much.

Xbox
-- Fatal Frame 2 -- Ok last week I finally broke this out of the shrink wrap and put it in the ol xbox and I have to say so far its really good. Very creepy and scary and the story is top notch. also If you have never played fatal frame 1 dont even bother with 2. The combat is soooo much harder in 2 then the first and if you are not used to how to play the game you will get SPANKED! Just as an example in FF1 it was about 3/4's of the way through the game when you started getting encounters with multiple ghosts which allowed you some time to get used to fighting just one before you had to deal with a bunch. Well SO far I dont think I have had any enocounters with just 1 ghost. They have all been multiples and they are all really ticked off. SO if you think it looks cool buy #1 play it, beat it, practice and then get 2. Just my suggestion.

Cheers

3-day weekend wrap up!

Ok I actually did some cool stuff this weekend so I thought I would post up about it.

Friday -- Was supposed to go climbing with luke but well lets just say I think somone keeps straightening her hair despite the fact that I told her I would take her climbing so we scrubbed climbing for that day and rescheduled for monday. Sigh I really didnt want to go to work but it was only slightly miserable. ^_^ J/K anyway so on my way home I stopped at borders and got my sweetie a book on PR strategies and what not to help her with her new job. why you ask? Just because and thats the only reason I need! Ok so I was almost home and then I remembered that I was supposed to run another errand. SO I got home finally at like quarter past 5 and ran and changed clothes and got ready to leave again. Where were we going???? why to the little miami football game thats where! Yup part of lisa's job is schmoozing it up with the pipples so we went early so she could talk with some people and hand out some Pro School literature. Ok I was all up for this and thought it would be fun. That is until it was like dark, 50 degrees, and raining. IT was sooooooooooooooooo cold but we managed and GO me I actually had 2 jackets in my car which was really good b/c we did not think it was going to be that cold out. SO we watched a little of the game and we bought SPIRIT WAREZ!!!!! I got a sweatshirt and lisa got this nice jacket so we are ready for any and all Little Miamit events now. SO that was cool and afterward we went with an old co-worker of Lisa's to this little eatery called wild bills in Lebanon. I had one of the best burgers I have ever had and was very very happy with it. SO that was friday

Saturday -- Slept in which was divine! And just kinda bummed around a bit in the morning and played some more .hack . I have to say I still dont care much for it but im at least goign to try and finish it. Then I went to my follow up eye doctor appointment at wal-mart. I know who in their right mind goes to wal-mart for contacts. I do thats who. I used to go to this pretentious snobby place in Oakwood and my Eye Doctor used to be Park Studebaker. Yeah I used your name and you work in the Oakwood Eye Clinic and despite the fact that your staff are nice your selection of glasses suck and your sir are quite the jerk to your patients. Hence the reason I will never go back to you or your establishment despite the fact that it was terribly convienant for me. SO to you I say good day! SO anyway why is walmart cool?? B/c the eye doc actually listened to me and then tried something new each time. SO in short I went through about 5 different sizes / styles of contacts till I got the ones that fit me really really well. Versus Park who said "these work for everyone else I guess maybe your different but I cant see how" what a tool. Anyway SO my past contacts experiance have been psuedo comfortable 1-2 hours. then hours 3-4 are bearable and hours 5-6 are flat out painfull. But with the final pair that walmart got me I left them in for about 25 hours and yes slept in them and was fine. I was feeling a little discomfort around hour 23 but to me thats pretty darn good compared to what I have been. After that I came home and we met Sue to go and see the new wallace and grommit movie. It was awesome. If you like wallace and gromit or chicken run then you will love this movie. Their are soooo many bunnies and I swear they are all cuter then the last bunny. Gromit delivers yet another Oscar winning performance which is truly remarkable as he has zero lines in the movie. He doesnt even bark! Hes just that good. SO its worth a watch if you like claymation and dry brittish humor which I do. After that went home and just did the chill thing.

Sunday -- was pretty normal except Sue is really sick so we didnt go over for lunch - I hope you feel better soon - and we played lots of the wallace and gromit video game that I just picked up. I think its called project zoo and apart from a totally WONKY camera and some at times difficult controls its a lot of fun.

Monday -- Despite the bad omen of rain and overcast Skies Luke and I still went climbing. It wasa a lot of fun and we got to hit three different sites successfully and the 4 one we tried was just really poorly rated and very difficult. neigther of us made it up. But oh well 3 outta 4 aint bad. Luke took some "Sam Fisher" pics so if he sends me those I will post em up. After that we came back and went to a movie with my sweetie. We went and saw "the cave" per lukes suggestion and it was ok. I hear steve hates it and I think thats a bit harsh although I think the movie should be renamed "When stupid people do dumb things" but that could be the title to most any scary/suspence movie. SO it was not bad. Then we ate dinner at max and ermas and that was really really good as well. SO that pretty much sums up my weekend which was pretty nice.

But alas now I am back to reality and working my butt off at the office so whenever you pass a computer think of me!

Cheers!

Overconfidence

Ok first off let me say that this is not the first time I have written a post about this same very topic. SO if there is some overlap oh please will ya forgive me. On the off chance that you wont I have included a pic that will help make things seem fresh and new. ooooohhhhh aaaaahhhhhh
Ok scrub that b/c it wont load my pic. grrr. Anyway It was a very smashingly well done Demotivator poster entitled Overconfidence. And the basic gist is dont take on the world if losing means the worlds gonna crush ya. SO what am I speaking of hmm Oh I dont know could it be Porn. Yes the ugly p word rears its even uglier head yeat again. This morning I got a call that a school was suspicious of an employee and would not give me anything to search on besides and address of a local machine. I assumed porn was a concern as 9 times out of 10 when I get requests like this its porn Oh and if you are wondering the 1 out of 10 was a guy who wanted to know if his people were going to E-Bay. Talk about micro-mgt. Anyway so I did the requested grep on the logs and I could have just sent them on their merry way but they are rather cryptic so I thought I would do some key word searching and see if I could find something. SO whats the first word I try "sex" WOW i gotta hit! then another and another and before too long I think I may have helped sink someones battle ship. Whats amazing isnt that I found the word sex its how incriminating web logs can be. for instance when I did a search for sex I didnt think I would find keyword searches on the internet movie database for lesbian + anal sex. SO I still dont know if this is a dude or a dudette but I did find a lot of searches like the above one through the imdb adult section. SO long story short while this model employee is supposed to be working they were truly in fact trying to find their next skin flick to go rent. SO this comes back to overconfidence and a statement I made a few months ago, that being: If you doing something your not supposed to be doing and your using a computer to do it you will be caught.

Below are my new insights on the matter

1. the Internet is not the free utopia everyone thinks it is, everything and I mean everything leaves a trace no matter what.

2. someone is watching or can watch if asked to.

3. If you want to search for porno flicks or look at porno for the love of pete man go home and do it. If you dont feel like you can look at porn at home then well maybe you shouldnt be looking at porn but if you can then dude for the love do it there. I mean if you cant go 8 hours without looking at porn then the porn is the least of your problems and you got some serious addict action going on.

SO lets sum up and since a recent mathmatically related post of a friend of mine got so much attention of late I will make this into an equation

porn + work = bad stuffs

porn + family = bad stuffs

work + family = good stuffs

so there in this case I fear that from my investigation the individuals results may be something like this

porn + work = -job

and if the family finds out its something like this

port + work + family = -( work + family)

SO again to all the stupid peoples out there who think their computer is the black hole of space and time its not!

Cheers!