Anne Rice Finds the Light

I thought an article this morning was extremely interesting. Anne Rice, the famous author of many vampire and dark/gothic novels, is now a Christian. It seems like she's gone through a lot, with her husband dying of a brian tumor in 2002, her almost dying in 2003 from an intestinal blockage, and having relocated out of New Orleans (well before Katrina hit).





Anyways, click the title of this blog (or the picture above) to read the article in Newsweek online. She says from now on she'll only be writing Christian based works. I am particularly interested in her next release in two weeks. I'll definitely be in line to purchase a copy and support her new endeavor.

Monday Night Games

And no, I'm not ready for some football. I plan to spend some time in THIS world tonight.



That and it's Monday, so we all know now that that means Ultimate Wussy 2 night and the Chuck review to follow! Other than that I think I have about 15 audio CD's that I need to burn to back up my TabletPC. I buy stuff on iTunes but then I don't want DRM on it, so I go and burn them to plain old audio CD's. That way I have my "legal backup" and if I want to mp3 them I can do so from there.

My poor tablet's been what I've done a lot of developing on the past five months in java, and I must say it's beginning to creeeeeeep to a sloooooooow haaaaalt with every possible java tool that's been run through it. My tablet wants its clean XP Pro OS and Visual Studio .NET 2k3 and SQL Server 2k5 back on it. It's jealous since it's had to share beds with Eclipse and has protested by creeping down to a halt and making me use my other laptop to game and do my 3D graphics stuff with.

A Million Little Pieces

Just finished this book because I had a couple of hours to kill today. My queue of books to read keeps getting longer, so it was time to crank out the ones that I'd started and half-read.



I can see why it's on Oprah's book list for the month. It was incredibly gritty and difficult to read. The language was strong and the grammar, although correct, was just as strong. Parts come off as a stream of consciousness that in other contexts would be difficult to follow, but seems to work well for this book. If you get a chance, pick it up. I can't relate to his situation, never having been there, but the passion and "Fury" in his voice resonates. Solid read.

Next on my list is probably "Goodnight, Nobody" by Jennifer Weiner. She's got a movie out now from her book "In Her Shoes". Chick-flick of course, but the book was a good read. I haven't seen the movie yet. I always like the book versions better. Back-story.



I'll post a review when I finish her latest novel.

I Don't See Any Body!

93-year-old drove 3 miles with body through windshield

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — A 93-year-old driver apparently suffering from dementia fatally struck a pedestrian and drove for three miles with the man's body through his windshield, police said.

Ralph Parker was stopped after he drove through a toll booth on the Sunshine Skyway, Traffic Homicide Investigator Michael Jockers said. The toll taker called police, he said.

Parker was not likely to face charges because he did not appear to know what happened or where he was, said Bruce Bartlett, chief assistant in the Pinellas-Pasco County State Attorney's Office.

"He may have somewhere in his mind have realized it was a crash, but immediately forgot about it," Jockers said.

The victim's leg was severed in the Wednesday night crash, police said. The man, whose name was not released, was 52.

Parker had renewed his license in 2003. (Related link: AARP checklist on when to stop driving)

"That was the one thing he had, to get in his car and just drive for the sheer enjoyment of driving," Jockers said. Parker lived alone after his wife died in 1998, authorities said.

The Great Pumpkin

msnbc had an interesting article on "Extreme Gardening" this morning. The link's at the top of this blog -- entitled "The Great Pumpkin" if you're interested. The Cliff Notes version is that this man spent at least two hours a day watering and feeding this monster pumpkin liquefied cod parts (and other fish "product") to get it to that size. It didn't even sit on the ground or get regular rain on it -- it was all controlled. Apparently the ground inhibits pumpkin growth so they put it on this mesh-type of net to rest on to support the huge size. Talk about someone needing a hobby. (Like my playing WoW for 8 hrs straight isn't one, hehehe).



They even have a pumpkin BOAT race! They hollow out their pumpkins and race across the river in them. WOW. I for one didn't know that pumpkins floated. Guess I'm a city kid.

By the way, that's not the dude that grew the pumpkin in that picture I posted. ;)

Mike Whitehead

Dude what the hell? You suck! I hope you can say "Would you like fries with that?" because your fighting career is Casper, man.

For those of you that are wondering about my rant, it's in reference to last night's Ultimate Fighter 2. That was pretty much the worst fight I've ever seen. It was the typical "I'm a wrestler, I'm a lardass, I'm gonna sit on you" attempt until he kinda just choked in the ring and got wailed on because he more or less stopped fighting.



Pretty bad when your own coach yells, "Mike, why don't you just lie against the cage until the time runs out, ok?" LMAO. The photo above from Sherdog shows him doing what he's doing best, getting his butt whipped.

And here's a link to "Chuck's $0.02" from the fight last night.
Chuck's $0.02

.NET Web Services

Playing with web services in C# today, picking up some useful tips, and a bunch of things I didn't know. Seems like web services in .NET are so much easier than they are in Java. Seems like everything's harder in Java, but maybe it's just me.

The gig on Friday was a bit of a let-down. I don't know if it was advertising or what but there just wasn't the crowd that we were anticipating for a grand opening. I think they're trying to do the "fancy attire" too much and it won't work in Tulsa. I wonder how many people got turned away for wearing a t-shirt. People don't exactly "run home and change" after being turned away, they just shrug their shoulders and take their wallets (and t-shirts) somewhere else. It'll be interesting to see how the club progresses over the next few weeks and whether their popularity increases or wanes to be even less than what we saw on Friday. It's a pretty nice club -- I think it just needs some more advertising.

For those of you that play World of Warcraft (or have played any MMORPG for that matter), check out this link for a pretty funny animated gif: LINK. Some days it's pretty much exactly like that in game. Those are the days that I log out.



Anyone watching Lost? I finally finished catching up on all of first season and the second season premiere. Three more episodes to go until I'm caught up. The darn show has me hooked. Partly because it's filmed in Hawaii and I know a LOT of the places that they film at, even the backstory ones that aren't on the beach are filmed in Hawaii for the most part. Partly it's the mystery that they're spinning on there. Pretty good stuff!

Elephant Run Pic

I was going through the Dynamo Hum pics from Elephant Run today and this picture was just TOO adorable so I had to post it.



I may start posting our "disgustingly cute photo of the gig" photo from each gig, hahaha. If we remember, we usually try to get someone to take our picture, we've got quite the collection now! :)

Dunno if I want to photograph tonight though. Shari onstage after the stomach virus... that just can't be good. You guys are probably thinking, "Yeah that'll be hilarious!" Going to see if I can't go all wild on the Gwen Stefani lookalike outfit tonight too -- we'll see.

Stage 3 Tonight! 81st and Memorial! Doors at 9, VIP Lounge open at 5pm! Band starts at 10!

Stomach Bug or Food Poisoning?

YOU be the judge

Chuck and I had a fantabulous time in Hawaii. "The Family" didn't drown him, which always tends to be a positive sign when I bring boyfriends home. (j/k) They really had a blast too, and it was a totally relaxing trip.

Gas is $3.49 a gallon there right now, and an Aurora sedan drinks about $50 worth. YEOWCH! Chuck got to experience places like Matsumoto Shave Ice



And Hanauma Bay, the North Shore, Todai's (the mecca of sashimi/sushi buffets), and Tamura's Market, where we bought poi, crab poke, tako poke, ahi poke, and LOTS of other delicious Hawaiian foods.

Chuck shocked my family by not only eating but LOVING crab poke, which is essentially raw blue stone crab with red pepper spices and Hawaiian salt and green onions and limu (seaweed).

We got to see the sea turtles snoozing on the beach on the North Shore and took a family pic here on our first day. From left to right, me, my dad, my brother Josh, and Chuck.

It was rainy/cloudy our first day there but there were GORGEOUS rainbows as well. You can't have rainbows without rain.

As soon as I'm feeling better I'll post a pictorial journal and link to it here in my blog for those morbidly curious about a local's trip to Hawaii. We did a few "touristy" thing here and there to give Chuck some Hawaii "flavor", but a lot of what we did was hang out at the beach, eat, and drive around the island.

SOOOOOOOO......back to my topic heading: Stomach Flu or Food Poisoning?
If you read Chuck's comment on the post before this one, you'll see that the two of us have been violently ill this week. His started after a trip to "Smokey Bones" restaurant, where four hours later I believe his stomach was completely empty. Eww. So being the sweetheart I am (ha ha), I stubbornly refuse to leave his side, and stay with him all night curled up on the ottoman while he sleeps on the couch and runs to the bathroom. Tuesday, wiped out. Wednesday, band practice and a visit to Stage 3 to see how the grand opening's coming along. I slept good on Tuesday night so I was pretty energetic on Wednesday, had fun at band practice, yada yada.

Wednesday night right before bed becomes a different story. I'm perplexed by the gurgling coming from my stomach, but I ignore it and go to bed. About 1am I'm propulsed out of bed and tear over to the bathroom and well... I promise not to TMI you here but it wasn't pretty. At least it wasn't messy. :P Blech.

So. Seeing as how I got similar symptoms almost exactly 48 hours after Chuck did -- did Chuck have food poisoning or was he harboring some foreign terrorist that decided to take up residence in both of us? I made it back to work today but I feel like I got run over by a Mack truck.

I'll post again this weekend after the Stage 3 Grand Opening. Been hearing it on practically every station on the radio. I'm just hoping I can keep upright for the majority of my time onstage tonight. I will be marking my nearest exits and making sure there's a clear path to the bathroom too, hahaha. Bluch.

Dangit I've Been Busy!

I hate when a week or two goes by and I don't get blog entries in -- GRR! Of course everyone knows why so I won't even bother explaining away myself (#$*%& work).

Here's a rundown before I mobile blog for the next five days -- of which I PROMISE I will be blogging my tail off! No pics since it'll be on my BlackBerry but I'll do what I can! The pics will come next week, promise.



Going to Hawaii tomorrow morning, Wednesday - Sunday. Chuck's coming along too, and it'll be his first trip there. All he wants I think is some sun, surf, and raw crab poke. This will be my first vacation that I have not brought a laptop with me. That's a biggie for me, and is a testament to the fact that I'm overworked and kinda sick of seeing a computer.

But I'm not sick of seeing my gadgets! Here are the lil gadgets that I will be bringing along with me -- so I'm not *totally* unwired ;-)

HP hx4705 PocketPC

Blackberry 7100t

Gameboy Micro

Sony PSP

iPOD

BOOKS!

Bluetooth Keyboard (for working on my novel on the beach of course!)

I have not forgotten BikerFox, who we saw at the Tulsa State Fair riding around on his front tire last Sunday, lol. Definitely gotta do an entry when I get back -- it'll take come compilations of pictures. But click on Placid Peninsula for a sweet BF collage of photos *grins*.