Andy

Happy Birthday to Me

My 27th birthday was today. Kevin came by for a dinner consisting of creamed chicken and biscuits, my traditional birthday choice, after which I donned the ceremonial birthday chicken hat and met my new friend, Pickles! That's right, I got a stuffed puppy just like Becca's Daisy, which was promptly named Pickles of course.

Pickles now has a prominant place next to Ants the aardvark on top of my monitor and frequently barks web-building advice or game commands from atop his lofty perch. I frequently offer him snacks to shut him up, but he doesn't seem to be the snacking type. He's cute though, so I don't mind so much.

Rome - Total War

I've been playing the demo for this game over the last two days and wow, is this game incredible. It took me a few runs through the tutorial and the sample battle to really get into it, but now I'm hooked, or at least I will get into it once I'm playing the full version. The detail level is just fantastic on all levels, from unit graphical detail to morale and physical condition, and this is just the tutorial!

You all need to run out and get this game so we can start up the multiplayer battles.

Boys from Brazil

Well, I finally found the opportunity to watch Boys from Brazil, a film from the 70s highly touted by my father as perhaps the best movie he has seen. I enjoyed the film for its epic-but-insidious plotline, but felt it was a tad slow to keep the mystery continuously engaging. That said, I think you should all find it and take a look, as the pace is really just indictative of the period in which is was made as opposed to flaws in the movie itself. After all, my dad gives it his highest review... Seven thumbs up!

Church Picnic

I was able to attend Mt. Carmel's 120th anniversary picnic today. The place was packed, and Reverend Dave Cooney from my middle school days was there with his wife Robin. It was great to see them both again after all this time. I believe the last time I saw Reverend Dave was after my chiari surgery in '99 (at least I think it was in '99 - It's kind of hard to remember now.)

I feel like he was the best pastor Mt. Carmel has had in my time there, probably in large part due to the fantastic youth group experiences I remember. I mean, we played floor hockey and everything! Come on! Hehe. I gave Dave and Robin a set of my cards and a tote bag before they headed out in appreciation for some great memories.

Becca's Birthday

I just got back from Becca's 6th birthday party. I tried to take some presents with me, but got caught as usual. Sigh... Actually there was no attempted gift-stealing, but I did get in some good age heckling. From now on I have to make sure to remember that Becca is either 3 or 17. Hee hee. Mom and I gave Becca a great little stuffed puppy she named Daisy in short order despite my advice to name her Pickles. I think I'll call her Pickles anyway...

Once I get Dave's pictures, I'll mix together mine with his and throw them in the pictures section of the site.

Web Surfing Helpers

My top choice is AVG Antivirus. Follow the link, select download free version, and proceed through the various installation steps. As with any antivirus software, the key to success is keeping it up to date. You can schedule automatic updates with AVG if you like (once every 2 weeks is a good ballpark.)

If you don't want to install antivirus software on your computer but still want to test for viruses, try Panda ActiveScan. The scan process takes a long time, so I'd recommend letting it run overnight. If you're on dial-up, you may be out of luck entirely, but it doesn't hurt to give it a try.

Firefox is a great browser that takes up very little space, blocks spam, displays web pages more accurately for those of you who know what that means, and will look very familiar to Internet Explorer users. I've been using Mozilla Firefox for about a year now, and have received a grand total of 0 popups. Firefox also lets you open new pages in separate tabs within the same main window, which cuts down on taskbar clutter. You can download and use this instead of Internet Explorer, the AOL browser, or the MSN browser without having to change things significantly. If you want to make Firefox your default browser send me a comment and I'll create a post on it.

If you're a little afraid to try a new browser but hate those constant popup ads, install the Google Toolbar. This handy little search bar doubles as a pretty good popup blocker (not as good as the Firefox browser) once you set it to block them, but only works on Internet Explorer.

I use Spybot, Search & Destroy to block and remove spyware, but Adaware also comes highly recommended by many. Some people even use both.

If you want to be able to read web documents in the popular pdf format, you need Adobe Acrobat Reader 6. It's useful to have even if you haven't yet encountered a pdf file because you likely will some day, possibly on this site.

Iron Chef Octopus Battle

I think the octopus battles are perhaps second only to the squid battles or anglerfish battles of Iron Chef fame. In the episode I'm watching now, an octopus has already escaped onto the floor, a beheaded octopus has continued to writhe for at least a good minute, and Iron Chef Kobe has savagely beaten the aforementioned cephalopod with large daikon radishes.

It's only half over folks!

A Gwen sighting

As we speak I'm talking to Gwen from high school! I haven't seen here for a few years now. It's always good to reconnect.

B.C. gets it right

Just click on the thumbnail to view the full sized image.