Shortly after I awoke Monday morning the power decided that it didn't feel like hanging around, so it took a few hours off. Not sure exactly was, as the weather wasn't all that bad. It was raining slightly, but no lightning and the winds didn't seem that strong. But then last night we had a MAJOR thunderstorm! Lightening flashed and thunder cracked while rain slammed down harder than Thor's hammer. The thunder was so loud that it felt like it was shaking our entire house. Power stayed on, though, so that was nice. Today the weather was a mix of sun and rain. No power issues, but once again our Comcast Internet was acting up. It didn't go out completely, but it would keep doing that reset connection thing so I had to keep hitting "retry" for almost every page load.

And since I'm on the subject of Comcast, I have to say that our NBC high-def channel has these constant, really annoying audio glitches where the sound will pop or click or drop for a fraction of a second. It is SO annoying! I wish I could test out the OTA channel to see if it was Comcast or NBC, but unfortunately we can't receive that channel with our antenna. The picture also has glitches, where little tiny boxes will pop up once in a while, but those I can live with. It's the constant audio popping that's driving me crazy. Makes it hard to enjoy the fine quality NBC programming like Knight Rider... LOL, I couldn't even type that with a straight face!

There's a first time for everything, and this morning was the first time that I ever found a dead raccoon laying in our backyard. Not something you see too often around here. And that sucker had some teeth! I called Haven Human Society animal control and they sent someone by to pick it up. I suppose I could have just dumped it in the trash, but then it'd be decomposing in the can for another five days... not a pleasant thought.

Last week I sent an e-mail to Red Lobster about some extremely bland Honey BBQ sauce that came with my dinner (you can read about that on our 2009 Reno Valentine's Day Weekend Vacation page). I wasn't expecting anything to come of it other than perhaps a reply saying "yes, it's supposed to have a very subtle flavor" or "no, the cook must have prepared it incorrectly", but today I received a letter in the mail from their Senior Guest Relations Representative, and included with the letter was $15 worth of certificates. So when Treese got home, we decided to go to dinner there.

I'm not a big seafood fan, so my choices at Red Lobster are kind of limited. I wanted to see if the Honey BBQ sauce tasted the same as before, so I asked our waitress for a sample, along with a sample of the Maple Cherry sauce that came on another chicken dish. I was happy to find the Honey BBQ did actually stimulate my palette, though it still wasn't nearly as good as the Honey BBQ we mix together at home. The Maple Cherry wasn't bad either, but tasted more like something for a dessert than a dinner. The downside of this meal was that it took forever to get our food (people who arrived after us received their dinners before we did), Treese's was overcooked, and my rice pilaf was cold. Yeah, I could have sent it back, but I hadn't eaten lunch and was damn hungry!

We are back from our 2009 Reno Valentine's Day Weekend Vacation! Okay, so we've been back since Monday, but I didn't get around to posting about it until today.

Well, our spectacular Charter Cable Internet is down again tonight. Been off for three hours and counting. Oh, and about 10 minutes after it went down, our TiVo HD locked up so I had to reboot by pulling the plug. Isn't technology wonderful?

Went to see the midnight showing of Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, though this time we went with one of Treese's friends. We got there maybe 15 minutes before showtime and already had our tickets, but still the theater was pretty crowded so we ended up in the second row from the front. In some theaters this doesn't make much of a difference because they're smart enough to put the front seats far enough away from the screen, but this was not the case for our theater. Thus, it quite difficult to get a good feel for what was going on in the fast-moving action scenes and anything that was zoomed in too much. And yet, we all still enjoyed it. I'm really looking forward to seeing it on DVD.

I woke up this morning to find our TV stations were, for the third time this month, once again nothing but a blank, gray screen. By now I know the drill, a not-so-quick reboot of the TiVo HD. So what am I supposed to do here? Call TiVo? This is already a replacement for the previous TiVo HD which had problems. And I know they're just going to blame the cable card. Call Charter? This cable card is already a replacement card for the one that originally didn't seem to work correctly. It's not like this is an unknown issue... or even a new issue. I have seen a few threads about it on the TiVo Community forums, the latest of which is New TiVo HD losing all channels since V11- getting gray screen on cablecard.

Although our internet connection hasn't gone down again since last Saturday, today I've been getting a whole lot of this message when clicking on hyperlinks:
Connection Interrupted
The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading
The network link was interrupted while negotiating a connection. Please retry
What the hell is going on over there, Comcast? Could you get your act together, please?

And while I'm on the subject of crappy service, let me just say that Tracfone SUCKS! If you're a frequent reader of my ramblings, then you may remember how Tracfone literally stole our minutes from us and replaced a known defective phone with another known defective phone of the exact same model. So pretty much, the phone was useless. Well, time has passed, and my wife decided to pick up a new cellphone as a Christmas gift to herself....

She got the TracFone LG 600 Pay-as-You-Go Cell Phone - TFLG600GP4. Now, the phone itself seems nice enough, having a good screen and all the little features one would expect nowadays. So the problem? Well, it only seems to receive calls about 10% of the time. The rest of the time it just goes to voice mail. Looking at the phone, it says we have four bars, so WTF is going on?! Oh wait, now it says two bars. Hold on... now four. And now zero. Whoops, back to four....

So it's completely unreliable in the house, which is crap, but at the very least she'll have a phone she can use to call me when she's out of the house. In fact, she called me just this afternoon. When she did, I asked if she had me on speakerphone, because the sound quality was so terrible. But nope, wasn't on speakerphone. Apparently all that distortion which makes the person's voice sound like electronic static is just a normal part of the phone. Or the service. I'm not sure which. My vote is for both. Isn't there any better cellphone companies out there that don't require a monthly service?

Anyway, despite any of that, I'm still happy, because today I got Rock Band 2 Special Edition! Yep, the one with the game, the guitar, the drums, and the microphone. Holy crap is that game fun! I still have yet to venture past the normal difficulty, though I did try the Freakin' Hard guitar tutorial. And yeah, it was freakin' hard! But I'm looking forward to honing my skills....

Today my wife and I started in on a couple of co-op games, Kameo and Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Marvel Ultimate Alliance we've already played on the PS2, but we're still enjoying it, and it looks much better on the 360. She's also been trying out a bunch of those online Yahoo games, though today our Internet connected kept going down. And actually, it's down right now as I'm typing this. And it's gotta be something on their end because we haven't changed anything. I look at the front of the modem, and the Internet light is off, the US is on, and the DS is blinking. According to the modem manual, "If the US and DS LEDs are flashing, the modem is still operating, but your Internet service has been disabled by your Internet Service Provider". So much for the great and wonderful Charter cable Internet.

This past weekend I created another website, this one for the organization Friends of the Vallejo Public Library, to which my father is a member. Coming up with designs takes way longer than I'd like, and can be quite frustrating when encountering browser bugs where content doesn't display as it should. Yeah, you hear me Internet Explorer 6! Some bugs I didn't even bother to work around, like the translucent PNG dropshadow or the centering of the translucent PNG title. I figure most people have upgraded by now. And those who haven't deserve what they see. But anyway, at least when I'm all done I feel like I've accomplished a major victory!

On January 23rd my dad came up for a visit. He brought a nice armoire that my aunt was getting rid of, which fits nicely in the spare bedroom. We worked on the McCune Collection website while he was here, and talked about creating another site for the Friends of the Vallejo Public Library. We went out for dinner when Treese got home from work, and he stayed the night. So it was a nice visit.

I found out that my good friend from junior high, who lives in Arkansas, was in California a couple weeks ago for some job training. Unfortunately, it was in central California, which was too far for a visit. Andy Winemiller is his name, and he is now a certified Mac Genius! He works the bar repairing computers and all that fun jazz. I don't know much about newer Macs, as I've only used the older ones, and then only briefly. But the commercials sure make them sound awesome.

Lets see, what else has been going on... I cleaned the gutters last week. Big fun there, especially since it was FREEZING outside. But it needed to be done, and there were a couple days which had periods of no precipitation, so out I went to freeze my fingers off. While up there I noticed that some of our concrete tiles had come loose and were sliding into the gutter, so on Friday we had a guy from Wait Roofing come over to fix that. It was very minor repair work, as it was only the bottom ridge caps that had come loose, so there was no need to remove or replacing anything.

Okay, so before I wrap this thing up, I'd just like to say one more thing... on Monday of last week I started working on a new project. Let your imaginations run wild!

Happy New Year!! Today I'm officially launching the new style for Absolute Anime. It's been in beta mode for several weeks, and since then I've made a whole lot of various corrections and tweaks. The new style has rounded edges and softer colors, so hopefully it's easier on the eyes. It also has a new side navigation bar which provides better access to not just other pages on the site, but also to sections within the current page. Behind the scenes, the new style does away with tables for the purpose of formatting... well, at least for the most part. There are some circumstances that pure CSS just cannot handle, and so tables become the only solution. I hope you like it, and please let me know if you find anything wrong with it.

Alcohol is evil! I rarely drink, as I'm just no good at it, but last night was New Year's Eve and we were over at a friend's place for a little party, so I decided to try my luck once again. I had taken a Zantac beforehand, hoping it would prevent the stomach I tend to get after drinking, and at first it seemed to work. My wife poured some Jägermeister and Red Bull mix in a little cup and it tasted pretty good. Soon after I started a second cup, the dizziness began to set in, but at least there was no stomach pains.

So when they opened a bottle of champagne, I partook in a glass, though by this time the room really seemed to be swaying, which made it hard to concentrate on conversation. The lady of the house suggested I try laying on the floor, and since I was feeling kinda dumb sitting there in the chair rocking back and forth for no apparent reason, I figured I'd give it a shot. Well, it didn't stop the dizzyness, and I can't say if was any better than the chair or not, but what I can say is that once I was down, I knew there was no way I would be getting up under my own power. So yep, I laid there until it was time to leave.

On the ride home, I had to concentrate on breathing to keep from hurling. When we got to the house, I crashed on the couch, fully dressed, with a little waste bucket near by just in case I spewed. My belly was still aching this morning, and I ended up not even eating anything until like 3AM in the afternoon. But at least I new blew chunks! Despite all this, I still had a good time at the party, and so did my wife. It was WAY better than staying at home watching those boring New Year's television specials that run for like 10 hours straight.

Now, for Christmas, my wife and I went to visit my parents. That was fun too. We all got to go to my cousin Scotty's  ceremony for becoming an Eagle Scout. Normally I find ceremonies boring, but this one was really cool to see. I actually paid attention the entire time, which is EXTREMELY rare. The next day we had lunch at my grandparents, with everyone sitting around the table with a nice big KFC spread, except that I opted for a sandwich instead. It's been a long time since I worked at KFC, but I still have no appetite for it yet. Perhaps someday.

That evening I spent working on my cousin Thera's laptop, which had gotten seriously messed up. For starters, there was this McAffee alert box that would pop up and never close, which made doing anything on the computer difficult because it was always on top so everything else was hidden behind it! After I finally got that removed, I ran virus scans and spyware checks and un-installed a whole bunch of garbage. And then I had to find some specialized malware removal programs to wipe out some of the really stubborn ones. I was up 'till like 3 in the morning working on it, and had to continue on the next morning! We were having Christmas dinner at my aunt's place, and I had just got everything finished as we were walking through the door that afternoon.

Christmas dinner, or I guess it'd probably be considered lunch, was nice and peaceful. We ate and talked, but we weren't able to stay very late since my wife had to work the next morning.

As you may or may not be aware, three weeks ago I fell sick. Towards the end of that first week, I felt much better, except for a nagging sore throat and cough. Unfortunately, that was but a calm before another store. When Saturday rolled around, I again fell to sickness, as all my previous symptoms returned with a vengeance. After another week of suffering, I once again began to feel my old self emerging. My symptoms all still remained, they were just not as potent. In fact, I was even able to go see The Mist in the theater with my wife and her mother, who was visiting for the weekend. I only had two cough drops on me, so thankfully I only came close to coughing fits twice in the theater. Had a third reared its ugly head, I would have had to excuse myself and miss a bunch of people going crazy in a supermarket.

Anyway, so this past Saturday marked week three. Despite having consistently been taking vitamin C, I still had a little congestion, a minor cough, and a sore throat. By now it was obvious what I had was bacterial, not viral, so I headed to the medical clinic where I got me some antibiotics. Lucky me, now I look forward to ten days of killing all bacteria inside me, good and bad. Definitely something I would have liked to avoid, but I guess sometimes you just aren't given much of a choice. But hopefully now I'll start feeling better so I can get my butt back in the computer chair and start updating the website.

If you've visited Absolute Anime recently, you'll notice that every update in November has been some DVD review. Since I was sick, I spent a lot of time cuddled up vegging on TV. Thank you, SpongeBob, for making it just a bit more bearable! Taking care of emails and adding new profiles can be a headache, so I avoided those tasks. But that's not the only reason for my lack of updates this month. I've also been working on creating a new, redesigned website for my dad's non-profit group called the McCune Committee. Currently, it's just located in a subdirectory on Absolute Anime called McCuneCollection.org.

It's a simple design, as is pretty much any site I layout. The original site was a single page, so my dad and I have put in a lot of effort this month building it up into something that can really showcase the McCune Collection. I also put in the effort to make it valid XHTML1.0, which was quite a pain. So far the only page that doesn't validate is the one where I use an [[iframe]] to display a Google map, since [[iframe]] tags aren't allowed. The Object tags are supposed to be used in their place, but of course that doesn't work with Internet Explorer. I could use JavaScript to put the [[iframe]] in place, but really, that's retarded; validation just isn't that important.