Stuffs
I haven't posted in a while, but not a whole lot has been going on. I declared Nerf War on Friday as I had to go to Walmart to gen some kitchen flourescene bulbs. Bought a Maverick, informed Drea that a Nerf Arms Race had started, and that she'd better arm herself of be content to be a target. They work ok, the cylnder has a bit of an alignment issue that causes misfires if your not careful with how hard you pull the trigger. On the other hand, the cats run when the hear one cocked.
I've been watching movies and anime all weekend. I bought a bunch of DVDs from Amazon this week. On the movie front, watched Gangs of New York, Support Your Local Sherriff, Support Your Local Gunfighter, and Adventures in Babysitting yesterday. Friday I finished off watching Planetes. I liked it quite a bit. A hard science fiction series was refreshing. It starts a bit slow, but around episode 4 or 5, is where I started liking it. I really like the opening them, Dive into the Sky, along with the opening credits which are a nifty montage of the history of rocketry and space flight. Dive in the Sky is also a blast to play on Audiosurf, but more about that later. I've moved on to The Mars Daybreak. Martian submarine pirates. What more could you want? Plus it has mechs, talking cats, and talking Beluga whales in powersuits. About all it's missing is ninjas. It's not brilliant, but plenty entertaining. And they have little, round, worker robots called BALLS. This leads to Drea and I snickering like 12 year olds whenever the mention them in the dialogue.
Now, to Audiosurf. Drea told me about it once it popped up on Steam. It's alot more fun than it should be for such a simple game. It has a variety of little F-Zeroesque racing ships that you pilot along a course made by Audiosurf based on the MP3 you select. Variables such as the tempo of the song determine the layout of the course. Typically fast and loud means the course is downhill and fast, slow and soft means slow and uphill. Along the way you collect colored blocks. You get three touching each other and the clear out and you score addition points, kinda like Tetris. The more blocks connected and cleared, the more bonus points. There's other variables based on the ship used but that's the basic idea. As I said before, more fun than it should be. It's also forced me to ensure all the text data for my MP3s is accurate. It won't upload and compare scores if it can't read the text info.
Finally, Fresh & Easy. These are small grocery stores the British company Tesco has been talking about opening in the US for a couple years now. They're available in California, Nevada, and Arizona so far. Basically a smaller sized grocery store, specializing in fresh and prepackaged meals. They have stuff like lasanga, sandwiches, sushi, burritos, baked potatos, and a variety of other things in small meal sized packages ready for microwave or other type of heating. They're very good too. Fresh, they have a sell by date, usually within three days. Half price if you buy them on the sell by date. Prices in general are very good. I bought a beef lasanga dish, about 1 1/2 pounds, for $4. The first visit was before work, and about 10 minutes before the store was closed, so they were pretty picked over. But the next visit was right at opening when they had a much better selection. Their packaged chicken salad is VERY good. I also bought some pork carnitas that made for some excellent burritos. Just emptied the package in a skillet and heated on medium for ten minutes. Drea bought a fajita package. Beef strips, onions, and a variety of peppers. Again just dump into a skillet with a little oil and cook for 10 minutes. They also have regular groceries, also very competitively priced, but the primary draw is the pre-packed stuff. Either finished meals or ingredients in meal packages. They do the ingredient packages with all sorts of vegetables and meats. Check out is through those automated terminals, which is somewhat fun. I don't think it's gonna replace ordering online from Safeway as my primary grocery source, mainly because their hours a not terribly compatible with my schedule. But once I have purchased a freezer unit, I definitely intend to visit every couple of weeks to stock up on meats and pre-made meals.
I've been watching movies and anime all weekend. I bought a bunch of DVDs from Amazon this week. On the movie front, watched Gangs of New York, Support Your Local Sherriff, Support Your Local Gunfighter, and Adventures in Babysitting yesterday. Friday I finished off watching Planetes. I liked it quite a bit. A hard science fiction series was refreshing. It starts a bit slow, but around episode 4 or 5, is where I started liking it. I really like the opening them, Dive into the Sky, along with the opening credits which are a nifty montage of the history of rocketry and space flight. Dive in the Sky is also a blast to play on Audiosurf, but more about that later. I've moved on to The Mars Daybreak. Martian submarine pirates. What more could you want? Plus it has mechs, talking cats, and talking Beluga whales in powersuits. About all it's missing is ninjas. It's not brilliant, but plenty entertaining. And they have little, round, worker robots called BALLS. This leads to Drea and I snickering like 12 year olds whenever the mention them in the dialogue.
Now, to Audiosurf. Drea told me about it once it popped up on Steam. It's alot more fun than it should be for such a simple game. It has a variety of little F-Zeroesque racing ships that you pilot along a course made by Audiosurf based on the MP3 you select. Variables such as the tempo of the song determine the layout of the course. Typically fast and loud means the course is downhill and fast, slow and soft means slow and uphill. Along the way you collect colored blocks. You get three touching each other and the clear out and you score addition points, kinda like Tetris. The more blocks connected and cleared, the more bonus points. There's other variables based on the ship used but that's the basic idea. As I said before, more fun than it should be. It's also forced me to ensure all the text data for my MP3s is accurate. It won't upload and compare scores if it can't read the text info.
Finally, Fresh & Easy. These are small grocery stores the British company Tesco has been talking about opening in the US for a couple years now. They're available in California, Nevada, and Arizona so far. Basically a smaller sized grocery store, specializing in fresh and prepackaged meals. They have stuff like lasanga, sandwiches, sushi, burritos, baked potatos, and a variety of other things in small meal sized packages ready for microwave or other type of heating. They're very good too. Fresh, they have a sell by date, usually within three days. Half price if you buy them on the sell by date. Prices in general are very good. I bought a beef lasanga dish, about 1 1/2 pounds, for $4. The first visit was before work, and about 10 minutes before the store was closed, so they were pretty picked over. But the next visit was right at opening when they had a much better selection. Their packaged chicken salad is VERY good. I also bought some pork carnitas that made for some excellent burritos. Just emptied the package in a skillet and heated on medium for ten minutes. Drea bought a fajita package. Beef strips, onions, and a variety of peppers. Again just dump into a skillet with a little oil and cook for 10 minutes. They also have regular groceries, also very competitively priced, but the primary draw is the pre-packed stuff. Either finished meals or ingredients in meal packages. They do the ingredient packages with all sorts of vegetables and meats. Check out is through those automated terminals, which is somewhat fun. I don't think it's gonna replace ordering online from Safeway as my primary grocery source, mainly because their hours a not terribly compatible with my schedule. But once I have purchased a freezer unit, I definitely intend to visit every couple of weeks to stock up on meats and pre-made meals.