The Blarg

I could look up my last sick post, but I’m too sick to look it up.

Watched a bunch of reality “relationship” television tonight laying on the couch. First was wife-swap with two crazy families. Then two divorced people that were moving on with their lives.

The new Pirates is nothing special. Entertaining, but a 15 minute storyline turned into a 3 hour movie.

My dose of Nyquill that was slightly over the 2 tbsp line is kicking in good and proper. I’m off to bed. Night!

When I get something in my head it’s really hard to get it out. Usually this is tied to desiring new technology or something of that nature. Luckily I have a wife who tempers that urge to buy every new gadget the minute I want it. Sometimes that means I don’t get it, or instead I think of inane arrangements to justify my purchase.

The wheels in my brain are still spinning about wanting to play the latest and greatest baseball game on PS3, so I start to find all these ways to pay for it, without actually spending money, which of course is ludicrous. But it sounds like it’s not costing any money, which is the genious of my plan. You might remember my WoW fast back in ‘04. I could pull a similar stunt here, but it would take a while. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

$60 - Money left in my old Wamu checking account that’s been there since we got married.

$170 - Money I made at school doing supervision, like watching kids on my lunch break. (This is above and beyond my regular pay, so it’s easy to argue that I can do whatever I want with it, like buy videogames.)

$80 - Money in my paypal account from selling the old Gamecube (which was supposed to pay for the Wii. Shhhh!)

$50 - Approximate money I could get from selling my original Xbox since I wouldn’t need it anymore.

$27 - Money I could get from selling Zelda: Twilight Princess. (I tried to play it over the weekend, and I almost went insane it’s so boring. But my new found distaste for adventure games is another post entirely.)

Sub-Total: $387
Remaining: $313

I’m still well shy of my $700 target. I’ve made almost $250 on my Nintendo stock, but I’m not sure I can justify including that in my scheme.

Time to look around the house for stuff to sell.

I thought I missed this big announcement, but apparently it was sometime in the last 24 hours. You can mark my return to PC gaming folks, because Starcraft 2 has been announced!

I want to play Starcraft 2 with friends via the internet, and get together at someone’s house and play all night long. Good times!

The politicians are swearing up and down that it’s not amnesty. “Look, there are a bunch of hoops to jump through. It’s not like 1986 at all!”

The entire thought process behind the recent Senate bill is backwards. A discussion about what to do with the illegals already here shouldn’t even begin until our borders are secure. Employers need to be held accountable for hiring illegal workers. The double fence needs to be built along the border (it’s not a wall, it’s a fence). Illegals that commit crimes should be immediately deported. Anchor babies shouldn’t become automatic citizens.

Once the above happens, then we can talk about what to do with the illegal aliens here. You don’t hand out Z-Visas that automatically make illegal immigrants legal (not citizens, but legal). You don’t create enforcement “triggers” to be met at a later date. Prove to me that enforcement is working now, not later. A majority of illegal aliens don’t even care about becoming citizens, they care about the jobs. Politicians are kidding themselves if people are going to pay thousand dollar fines and return to their home country to become citizens.

If a Republican presidential candidate backs this bill, they will lose my vote. So far Romney has the right response, McCain (not surprisingly) doesn’t.

Due to my pathetic lack of posts lately, I give you two in the same hour!

What’s up with Wilson Betemit? Most of the year he looks like total garbage, then they bring up LaRoche and he starts hitting. All I know is one of them needs to break out and shine.

Speaking of baseball, I’ve been reading about MLB ‘07 The Show on PS3. I’m really in a precarious situation. I love my Wii, but it will never have a classic baseball game on it due to the motion controls. My other console is the original xbox, which only has one new baseball offering this year, and it’s probably the last.

As I consider my inevitable purchase of either an Xbox 360 or PS3, the baseball title offerings are a huge priority. Sega has a monopoly on the MLB license, so MLB 2k7 is the only baseball title made by a 3rd party publisher. SCEA, Sony’s publishing house, is exempt from that exclusivity, so they can make their own MLB game. It’s only available for PS3 though. That means Xbox 360 has one game to choose from, and PS3 two games.

Of course the PS3 costs $600 and the game is another $60. There should be a price drop eventually, but the kid in me still gets excited reading about new games even though I don’t have a lot of time to play them. I still need to beat Zelda, and I have Paper Mario on the Gamecube waiting.

Today is the second to last day of state testing. My group of kids is done, but because of our strange schedule, I have my kids for over an hour with nothing to do. That means movie time!

There is a certain charm to my job that is hard to quantify. No, not really. Let me try.

Granted there are negatives, but the positives far outway them. I heard a kid call up Larry Elder yesterday and complained that his mom, a teacher, didn’t get paid enough. Elder pointed out that if teachers aren’t fairly compensated, then they’d have a hard time filling positions, but they don’t.

If I was working in the private sector I would be working longer hours, get two weeks of vacation, and there is no way I could pursue writing a book. Regardless of all the hoops I have to jump through and the occasional bad apple, this is my dream job.

The Blarg is working again. I no longer have an excuse for not posting.

This week a very large portion of my “free” time was devoted to beginning teacher work. In case you haven’t heard me complain yet, there is a bunch of work I have to do to make sure I’m supported in my new career of teaching. Nevermind my 4 year degree, or my 2 year credential, because the government bureacrats still don’t think I’m qualified to be a teacher. Granted I have great job security and a good retirement system, so I won’t complain too much. It has taken away from being able to work on the book though, and that isn’t cool.

We’re state testing this week and next. It’s pretty boring, but I’m getting a lot of reading done. I’m reading a book titled “The Sky People.” It’s an alternate history book. When exploration of the nearby planets was being done back in the 50’s and 60’s, instead of Mars and Venus being void of life, it turns out they were hospitable to life. As a result there were manned missions to setup stations on the planets. This book is completely about the Venus station, with only a few minor references to Mars. Overall I think the concept is interesting and descriptions of the planets great, but I’m 1/3 done with the book and I have zero idea what the main conflict is, and I’m beginning to think there isn’t one. People are on the planet doing a few different things, but it’s like being a fly on the wall. I have no idea if the scene is important to a larger story, or if the scene will be forgotten as soon as it’s over. This is the first fiction I’ve read since I started seriously writing my book, so I’m finding it very difficult to read without analyzing.

I haven’t bought a car yet, but I did up my credit card limit in case I decide to buy one outright. Mucho AMEX points that would be. Thanks for the heads up Kevii.

We had originally planned to drive all around the country this summer, but now I’m feeling like a drive up through Utah on the way to Yellowstone is plenty adventuresome.

That’s all folks.

I don’t like any of these guys. I wants me some Fred Thompson. Anybody else?