Sold the Exercise Bike!

We finally sold our recumbent exercise bike! I've listed that thing on Craigslist off and on for years, so I'm happy someone finally snagged it. The bedroom looks like it has so much more space with it gone.

Movie Costume Exhibit at Turtle Bay

Today we all went to see the movie costume exhibit at Turtle Bay. It was pretty cool to not only see the costumes worn by the characters I grew up with, but to also read about what went into making them. I was surprised by how small most of them were. It didn't look like I would have been able to fit into any of them, not even Schwarzenegger's leather jacket from Terminator 2.

I also had to mail back an external hard drive that I had just bought because the connections on the back didn't align with the holes in the case making it impossible to plug in either of the wires. Because it was defective, I didn't have to pay return shipping, and as luck would have it the price had dropped so instead of doing an exchange I just did a return and re-ordered it at the lower price. I know Amazon has some kind of price guarantee where you can get the lower price if it's within 30 days or something, but my way was just easier than having to deal with that. Plus, it allowed me to order a 3M Shower Caddy along with it and not have to pay shipping charges.

No More Spare Tire

My grandparents left for home before I even woke up, and my parents came by as they're going to be staying for a few days. It was a relaxing day talking, watching TV, fiddling on the computer and whatnot.

Oh, and I sold my old never-used spare tire that we got for my 2000 Toyota Corolla this morning, so I'm glad to finally have that thing out of the garage.

Thanksgiving!

My parents and grandparents arrived in town yesterday and came by to hang out. This morning we were going to head over to their hotel room before everyone came here, but I stayed at the house while my wife went over because we had the turkey in the oven and didn't really want to leave that going without someone here.

Dinner went well. We ate and talked and put on movies. It was a good time.

Dexter By Design

My wife seemed a little down this evening, so I gave her one of her Christmas presents early in order to cheer her up. The one I choose was the book Dexter By Design, and it worked. It put a big smile on her face.

Couch Relocation

Cleaned up the house a bit since we'll be hosting Thanksgiving this year. Got rid of a whole bunch of boxes I had been keeping to ship stuff in that I sell on Amazon. We also moved the second couch with reclining seats from the living room into the family room. I think it looks fine there and also is more comfortable than the chair I usually use.

Our last 301 Disc DVD Player has left the building.

I sold our second Pioneer 301 Disc DVD player today. The first one I sold a while back and was actually able to hand-deliver it since it was purchased by someone who lived not 30 minutes away from my parents. That was cool because not only did I not have to find a box big enough to pack it up and worry about it getting damaged in shipment, but also because it gave me a good excuse to go visit my parents. This time, however, I had no choice but to ship it, and it was quite a challenge finding a box the right size. But I did, and I had kept packing peanut around from previous orders I've made, so I was able to pack it up nice and secure.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

I started playing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed today, which is one of the two games my wife got me for our anniversary. The other was Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, which we've been playing. So far, I'm really liking the game.

Home Made Pizza Sauce

My wife's friend, Lisa, visited today so I got to play a lot of Half-Life while they chatted. I took a break for lunch as my wife made some of her delicious hot and sour soup, but after I went back to gaming.

Later in the evening I went to make a tortilla pizza, but found that the pizza sauce had gone bad. All I could find in the pantry was a can of tomato paste, so with a little help from the internet and some seasoning we had in the cupboard I was able to turn that into a rather tasty pizza sauce substitute.

Return of the Microwave & Viewing Skyline

Our broken microwave was mysteriously returned sometime during the night, as this morning I awoke to find it had been dumped on our front lawn. I had put it out on the curb, so I can understand somebody taking it even though I didn't put any sign on it that said "free", but dumping it back on our lawn? What a jerk move.

We went to see Skyline this afternoon. I'm glad we did because I love going to the movies with my wife, especially to see sci-fi ones. I just wish it hadn't sucked so bad. I truly don't understand how that script made it into production. Most of those stupid low budget poorly-acted original movies made for the SyFy channel have better stories.

Skyline is about an alien invasion, but the first 15 minutes is all about friends hanging out at a party doing nothing. That part kinda reminded me of Cloverfield. Let's get on with it already! Then most of the rest of the film takes place inside an apartment. There is a short little action scene where they decided to try to leave the apartment building, but that doesn't work so well, so they continue to stay inside the apartment. We see the alien invasion only from the perspective of this one little group of people who have nothing to do with affecting it's outcome. Independence Day wasn't the greatest flick in the world, but at least in that we got to see the invasion from various perspectives by people who actually made some kind of difference.

Who wants a broken microwave?

Contacted Gone For Free E-Recycling in order to get rid of our broken microwave. They said they could come by this afternoon so I left the microwave out on the curb for them, but by the time they arrived somebody had already swiped it up for themselves. All I could do was apologize for having them come out to our house for nothing.

Blood Drain

I Donated blood today. This was the first time I actually went into the Blood Center to do it. Usually I just stop by the Blood Bus when it's parked in the movie theater lot because they give out free movie tickets, but now they have this new point system for donating where you can trade in the points for movie tickets or other stuff online. I received 800 points, which was enough for two movie tickets valued up to $12 each. We'll probably use them to see the 3D showing of Tron Legacy when it gets released.

Goodbye Malware

We went over to a friend's house this evening so I could help fix some problems they've been having with their computer. Last Friday I had run a bunch of malware and virus scans, and did a bunch of cleanup, and it seemed to have worked, but after only a day the problems were back. Random popups and webpage link redirects and blocked sites. So it seemed the only way to fix it for good was to reinstall the operating system. So first, all their data had to be backed up, but their computer had only a single hard drive and they had no external backup solutions. Luckily, they had an old computer they were no longer using, so I was able to pull the hard drive out and use that. It was like 5 in the morning before it was finally ready to be used. Thankfully, they were both night owls like myself.

Anniversary Games & Megamind

I found two new videogames resting in my chair this morning (after walking right by them a couple times). They were Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and they were my wife's anniversary gift to me. I had previously gotten her a hardcover copy of The Host: A Novel by Stephenie Meyer.

We went to see Megamind in 3D, and we both really enjoyed it.

New Microwave, Cleaner Fridge.

Got a replacement countertop microwave today from someone who didn't need theirs anymore. It's much smaller than our previous one, but it should do the job.

Cleaned the condenser coils on our fridge for the first time since forever! At least, I don't remember ever cleaning them before, and we bought the fridge like 10 years ago. I didn't even know that was something that needed to be done! I only found out when I did a websearch for fridge maintenance, because I had been noticing that the fridge has been kinda loud and vibrating for some reason. Now that the condenser coils are nice and dust free, the vibration seems to have been reduced, though it's not gone completely.

I guess next I should probably clean out the inside of the fridge... but what a pain that is!

Leafblower Repair

Finished cutting up the rest of the tree branches I had cut down a few weeks ago, so glad to be done with that. I used the leafblower to clean up all the leftovers that had settled on the rocks, but in the middle of doing that I heard a piece came loose inside it, so had to shut if off and take it apart. I got the piece reattached, but when I put it back together I didn't quite get the fan motor locked in place so when I started it up, the fan scraped against the outer plastic. Thus, once again I shut if off and take it apart. This time I put it back together correctly, and was able to finish cleaning up.

Sorry, Another Lineup Change Was Detected

TiVo detected a lineup change today, which is nothing out of the ordinary, except that this time it detected a change when no change took place, just like back in early September. It moved several station from the 800-block into the 700s, even though they still come through on the original channel numbers and not the new ones. Last time I just filed a report and it was changed in about 5 days, so this time I tried to do an online chat with TiVo support. The end result was the same, however, as at the end the TiVo support person wound up just submitting a report for fixing the channels. Sure hope this doesn't happen again in another two months.

My wife and I caught the premier episode of The Walking Dead on AMC last night, and we were both thoroughly impressed. It had a great atmosphere, and didn't shy away from gore, creepiness, or the killing of kids and animals. After only one episode it has already become one of my favorite series. I hope they can keep it up!

I forgot to mention yesterday that our countertop microwave went kaput. I started it up like normal but this time an awful sound emanated from its belly almost immediately, and a bit of foul-smelling smoke exhaled from the rear.