Domestic Geek

I saw some tweets last week about the Google Pac-Man game they had on their homepage to honor the 30th anniversary of the game. Many people were lamenting how much time they had wasted playing it. Fortunately for our company, our department is not allowed to use the Internet during the work day for non-work activities (we have to log in to a firewall to get to the Internet and those logs are reviewed frequently). Other companies were not so lucky. Apparently, more then 4.8 million work hours were wasted by people playing the game.

Not much to report this week. I started working on some knit Christmas stockings for Marcus and me. I decided last year that I can no longer use my old ones. I made matching quilted/cross-stitch stockings for Marcus, myself, Ursa and Skippy many years ago. It hurts now to pull them out and not be able to hang the dog ones (I'm teary as I type this), so I retired them. I purchased the Knit Christmas Stockings book and asked Marcus to pick out which one he wanted. Of course he picks the most basic one and then picked red/green as the color he wanted. Not original, but that is OK. I asked for his input and I'm going to make what he wants. When they are done, I'll post a link to the completed project post on the craft blog.

Marcus and I are celebrating our 17 year anniversary this week (10/28). We continued our tradition of getting Endless Shrimp at Red Lobster to celebrate last evening. We had a really awesome server, it was cold and snowy outside (just the way Marcus likes it). We had a really nice time.

I realized last night that Mayor Tortimer never gave me my golden fishing rod for catching all the species of fish in the Animal Crossing: City Folk game on our Wii. Grrrrr. To say I was upset was an understatement. I searched forum and cheat sites trying to figure out why I hadn't received it. I kept trying to tell myself that it is only a game and not that big of a deal, but I was genuinely disappointed. I open the game this morning and ta-dah!...he's outside my house with my fishing rod. D'oh!

I started my Netflix membership back up, so I've been on a movie watching kick. I'm also really pissed off at network television at the moment. At the start of the season, I picked which shows I would DVR and which shows I could watch online and which shows I would just have to give in and watch live if I wanted to see them. I had a schedule with all of my bases covered...or so I thought. The stupid networks keep changing when their programs air and a couple of shows I thought had online episodes do not. Then you throw in a hour episode here that screws up the schedule or a season premiere weeks after the other shows start that I hadn't calculated into the fray. It's maddening. I understand why they do it, but it still infuriates me to no end. You can't even do like you used to — watch one show the first half of the season and then watch another show during repeats — because there is no repeat season anymore. Show a few episodes, a couple of weeks of repeats, a few new episodes. Never coinciding with any other show's schedule. Annoying.

Marcus rented Scribblenauts for my Nintendo DS from Gamefly, so I played that this past week. Interesting little game. I'll have to get that one day. I went ahead and sent it back for now, though. I've got other stuff I need to be doing instead of being addicted to yet another video game!

Well, it's that time of year to get the wishlists in order. I guess I'll start tackling that later today. The weather is supposed to be halfway decent today, so I guess I had better get the oil changed in my car before it snows again. Lots to do today, so I'd better get to it.

10/27/09 - ETA: CBS had repeats on last night — showing shows from last season. WTF is up with that? Why do I want them to show stuff that I may now already own on DVD? Lame! Network television sucks!

Overheard the man say to his friends on team speak as they play their weekly Call of Duty game:

"Classic rifles puts me in the mood for teabagging."

Video gaming has long been a source of entertainment in this household. Actually, a lot longer than Marcus' and my relationship. My very first video game experience was playing a neighbor's Atari Pong console back in the '70s. One of our first couples gaming experiences was playing mini-golf and Leisure Suit Larry on his old Amiga machine. We used to challenge each other by playing Super Mario World on our SNES nightly to unwind after work. Marcus games weekly online with his friends playing Call of Duty. Heck, we even have a full-size Playstation store demonstration unit in our living room. It should be no surprise then that we want to get a WII. We played with Mike and Nina one evening over at their apartment and that is the most awesome gaming console ever!

When we finally get one, I found an online store where I can get WII video games called Game Quest Direct. They boast the largest selection of new and rare video games on the 'net. If you're looking for discontinued titles (such as Resident Evil 2 for Nintendo Game Cube or Mortal Kombat Trilogy for PS), this is the place to check first. I'm seeing a couple of cool titles that I'd like to get for our old Playstation.

Game Quest Direct offers weekly price slash coupons on their main page, so check often to see if the game you want is on sale. In addition, there are $10 off Halo 3 preorder specials in the following video.

I wrote the other day about BackgammonMasters.com and my desire to learn to play that game. Well, now they have added a new game to their "All-in-One" game software that already included the popular favorites of backgammon, perudo and poker. You can now play online Blackjack! That's one game that I really love to play. Yes, all four of these games are now available as a single download and is available in ten different languages. Best of all, the software is absolutely FREE!

When you download and begin playing these networked games, you'll be playing with thousands of other players across the globe at any given time. They are hoping that the addition of Blackjack to the site will increase traffic of players by 300%. Quite a lofty but certainly attainable goal.

You can help BackgammonMasters.com celebrate the release of the new game by participating in special free tournaments they they are holding. You'll be playing at a table with up to five players simultaneously. You can communicate with other players through their online chat feature. One of the cool features of their site is that you can participate in View Mode where you can watch the action happening and get a feel for the games before actually sitting in.

So whether your game is backgammon, blackjack , perudo or poker, head over to BackgammonMasters.com and give it a try. Just remember to play responsibly!