The Holtonian

Ramblings and Gramblings

Not much to blog about in the freeworld. Not much has been on my mind really. My wife asks me "What are you thinking about?" or "Whats on your mind?" granted she does it with better grammar. I really have nothing on my mind. Maybe I've reached my peak of intellectual prowness. Oh well it was a good run.

      The crabbarinos are coming up for new years. It should be a good time of food and fun. Not sure what we'll do, though we never really plan on anything. Maybe I'll put crabb to work and have him work in my yard with me. My back yard's a mess, I haven't touched it since summer. Its too hard to rake all the stuff back there and even if I did I have no idea where I'd take it. My yard is very long and it would take forever and a day to get it all down to the street. I'm hoping nature will do something about it.
      Also my folks will be passing through the Chattaland area on there way down to see my brother Hunt off. He's going to Icrack... or Iraq to kick some insurgent's butt... or just establish some law and order, which ever he decides really. I'll be sad to not see him for a year plus but know he'll do a kick butt job over there. Hey he was always good at beating me up and keeping me from blowing things up. I mean he 's been my older brother for going on 24 years now and I haven't done any sort of terrorist attack, so he must be doing something right. But keep him in your prayers as he's my special boy. Oh wait he's mom's special boy. But he's always been a hoot to hang around and it was a blast having him around on Christmas. He can quote Napolean Dynamite like no other. "GOSH!" "Vote for me and all your wildest dreams will come true."
      But as I was saying the folks will go see him off and then come back up here and hang with the Holties. They have yet to see the house so it should be fun. I put up the new chandileer yesterday and its looks a lot better than are old one. I may auction it off on Ebay as its brand new but just not our style. I need to tap into the Ebay wealth, before its too late!

Christmas Loot

Christmas came and went. I surprisingly made a really good haul. Lots of DVDs. Starwars Trilogy from the wife, Shrek 2 from the inlaws, Rudy and Napolean Dynamite from Hunt and I gave the Indiana Jones Trilogy to the wife. So we got a ton of movies.

We had the Roes up last night and watched Napolean Dynamite, it was hilarious. By far the funniest movie I've seen in a long while, also one of the cleanest movies I've seen in a while. It has to be one of my favorites for the year, it was stinking funny. "I GOT NO SKILLS."
One of the funniest lines in the movie was edited out and is in the extras. "Yeah, well I bet you don't know the secret government illegal ninja moves." Or something like that.

Hunt also got me the new Bond Goldeneye game. Its pretty cool though hard to play. I was playing this afternoon for a few minutes and it was impossible to tell friend from foe because of the glare... so i shot everyone. I played more tonight after the sun went down and it was better. Problem is you don't have a sight you have this tiny laser dot that's hard to see. Though the guns are pretty cool and the game's got good movies and what not and a decent story that keeps things rolling. I like the double weapons feature too, its no Halo 2 but I'll enjoy it.

The best gift has to be the wifey getting me the Civ3 expansion pack, because not only is it cool, but it shows her love for me as she hates that game and she went out and bought me an expansion for the game.

I also got a leaf blower from the inlaws which I used this afternoon on my lawn. Leaf blowers are great, but what stinks is you still need to rake, no matter how powerful the leaf blower eventually you get a pile you just need to rake, so it still took a dang long time to rake/blow today.

My inlaw grandparents got me a really cool paper shreader that eats up anything, its great I've been throwing all sorts of things down it.

I got a few other ins and outs, not a lot of clothes which was cool. Mostly pratical stuff.

Wifey got a chandileer for the dining room which is cool. I got her a ton of clothes, jewelry and a harrod and funk cd.

TOmorrow I'll start work up again for three days. Should be boring, but oh well.

Wife Find the Presents

Well the wife was doing a wonderful thing today, packing my suitcase for christmas. However I failed to tell her not to go into the closet as that was where my presents for her were. So she found them... which stinks. I don't blame her its my fault for not rapping them sooner. Though she found the gift I had shopped for so long for last night. Its Ok cause there's a few other sneakers she doens't know about that I've since wrapped up. Every gift I got her was something she wouldn't buy herself but I think she really wants. Those are usually the gifts we like to give each other.
      In other news my head is like a big zit, that is I've got this huge head cold and its doing its number on me. We're going to macon for christmas and I'm hoping all the drugs I'm on will kick in soon. SInce Macon is in the works this will most likely be my last blog for a bit.
      I'm really frusterated with all the movies I want to see right now. There's a few rentals I have yet to rent Napolean Dynamite (everyone and their mother talks about this movie as if it was the funniest thing and I have yet to see it), Eternal Sunshine--everytime I've tried to rent it its been checked out, then the movies at the theater... Well I haven't seen anything so count me in for anything. I really really want to see Leminiy Snickets, Ocean 12, Spanglish, Beyond the Sea looks interesting, and life aquatic of course. Oh well... nough babble

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Christmas Shopping and other rambles

I think I'm pretty much done with my xmas shopping. I've shopped online for a total of 5 hours, and been to numerous malls (I realize a comma is not necessary there but I felt it was nice). I've only bought one thing online for the wife, and a few things out at the mall. I would have bought more online but didn't want to pay for shipping. I realize some places ship for free but the places I was at didnt. Wow, I just realized how boring this is... I need to step it up on this post otherwise I might lose your interest... I'm already losing my own.

      I wish I could blog about the gifts I got the wife, but I'll have to save that for next week. I think she'll like what I got her, though she bought two of the gifts. Her family has this weird pseudo tradition of her going out and buying stuff and telling people to give it to her for christmas. Its kind of nice cause it cuts out some of my work.
      I ran into one of my co-workers at Sears and found out in my absence she has accepted another job. So my team of coworkers has gone from about 13 to 5 in one year. They've posted some jobs for it on the company website though the job takes a year to get the hang of so its pretty much hopeless of getting any sort of immediate help. I'm not looking forward to the email barrage I'll have tomorrow, I'm guessing over 200 emails will be awaiting me in my inbox.
      I bought Blade Runner for 3 dollars on DVD at wallmart. I figure its a decent enough movie to buy for 3 dollars, and if its not (I haven't seen it in years) then I'll sell it to Mckays and hopefully get more than I paid. I also saw Dark City for 5 dollars which is a pretty good little dvd though I didn't purchase it.
      Don't you hate that, when you're shopping for other people and you find a million and one things for yourself. And its never stuff like a 350 dollar U2 I pod, its stuff that you would normally buy for yourself. I mean a computer game for 10 bucks, a gamecube game for 15, a cd for 10 bucks, a dvd for 5 or 10 bucks. I mean cheap stuff and most of it decently entertaining. I didn't even bother stepping foot in any of the gameshops tonight knowing what agony would befall me as I saw the prices and my inability to purchase things. Another thing is not having a lot of money to purchase these little things. THough not much money a 10 dollar dvd could go towards groceries or bills, something I'm more concerned with than my entertainment... unfortunately.
      I've noticed I don't like ESPN.com anymore. I prefer to get my sports from yahoo sports. The layout of the info is better, updated more often, and the team pages has more news than ESPN's. Like if you go to the Cardinals page on Espn it has a bunch of last year's stuff. Yahoo has all the info on the Cards aquiring Mulder and giving up their future... I think it was a dumb move to send Danny Haren to oakland, I think he has a lot of talent. Mulder's good but send someone else than Haren. I was hoping to see Haren and Ankiel come out as starters and tear it up as two young pitchers. Marquis I think won't do much and Suppan and Morris aren't that great. I think Haren had the young fast ball they could use. Sending Woody Williams out though was a decent move, he's getting up there. I'm still ticked about Matheny leaving, but what are you going to do. Ok thats nough rambling for one night

Ramadan Hotels Suck

Well the weekend of insanity has ended. After leaving last tuesday night for Nashville the wife and I have returned home to our beds and our dog. We went to nashville tuesday night and stayed at the Ramadan Hotel: the whole reason behind this was to get a free ride to and from the airport. We would have bummed rides from folks but both flights were early and the return flight landed around church time on sunday and we didn't want to put anyone out.

Funny story, well wasn't funny at the time, the whole reason we stayed at the Ramadan Hotel was for the free shuttle to and from the airport, it certainly wasn't for the seventies decor. Well we pull up and go to the front desk and my wife goes to situate everything with the desk clerk, he tells her the price is 55 my wife explains she was told 50. He explains that there's taxes added to the 50, my wife rubuts with "We were told 50, if its not 50 we'll leave." So we got 50.

We then are told that it would be an extra $20 to leave our car at the hotel for a week. Something they had told us over the phone was free for 7 days. My wife springs into action again and belittles the guy back into the prearranged deal. Meanwhile this whole time I'm calmly sitting down smiling as my wife devours any sort of backbone this desk clerk once had, and rightfully so.

So we get picked up in the morning by a strange little african man (Think Romeo or David Yleah accent) that takes us in his van to the airport. The drop off was fine though the African immigrant was short on manners and was a bit abrubt. Skip ahead to sunday when we fly in. As soon as we land, I pull out the cell phone and inform the hotel we're ready to be picked up, knowing full well it would take them a good bit to get to the airport. We pick our bags and proceed to the hotel pick up waiting area.

45 minutes later Mr. African guy pulls up in his van (the hotel mind you is 5 minute drive away). He puts the bags in the car and asks for 10 dollars. We have a short enterchange where I explain to him that we had agreed with the hotel it was taken care of, he explains he doesn't drive people back to the hotel only from the hotel. I pull out the cell phone, call the hotel, and explain the situation to the hotel. They side with me and I hand the phone over to the African guy. He begins to yell at the hotel clerk and saying, "this is not in my contract" in a voice reminiscent of Romeo Yleah (a liberian student from Covenant College). Long story short, we're kicked out of his van he drives off, and we wait for another 45 minutes to be picked up by the hotel manager. A man who did not apologize or offer any sort of reimbursement for our time or annoyance.

We thought about asking for a voucher but we were so sick with the Ramadan that we figured why bother. That and I figured that a hotel as shabby as it was would not be willing to fork out a free night to anyone. So that was the biggest annoyance of the trip.

Copper, We're not in Texas anymore... oh wait we are

So I'm here in San Antonio, my favorite city in Texas. I actually do like this city a lot, filled with good mexican foods and a really cool down town that kind of is a look at what Chatt may turn itself into if the downtown revitalization is completed. Granted there are plenty of parts of San Antonio downtown that still need a lot of work, but the river walk is quite fun and quite cool.

I feel very odd being here. I've often said I'm not a fan of weddings I'm not in, or in this case, I don't know a soul. My wife's a maid of honor, or i guess matron as she's married to me. So I'm just sitting here, acting as I have termed myself, "Arm Candy." I'm the trophy husband that my wife can show off and say, "Look how well I married..." though people probably look at me and think, "Poor girl. He's pudgy, not rich, and smells a bit gamey."

But oh well, the inlaws came in and we went to lunch at the Alamo Cafe Tortilla Factory. This tortilla factory puts chatt's to shame. Its got some killer tortillas and great fajitas. I overstuffed myself and now am just chilling while the women are congregating downstairs for a lingre/bachelerotte party. Yeah, I'm turning on my md player loud and hoping I don't here a dang thing. I could've hung with the inlaws which would have been fine, but I figure the girls will only be here for an hour or two and then I can go downstairs and watch some cable and be ok.

I'm going to make this a long entry as I have nothing to do and am very bored.

The guy we're staying with, I should say family, is a really cool Christian Lawyer dude. He's pretty much the main guy trying to get Roe v Wade overturned. He presents in front of the Supreme Court next month or so and is hopeful but also a little realistic. If they can get the court to hear the case, which you have to present, they think about it, then if the accept then they'll hear the case. But basically the hope is they'll hear the case and then in a year or two get in there and by then some of the liberal judges will have croaked or something. It could be a great thing if it was overturned, and to hear some of his arguments, he has a million, they're pretty good. Not the obvious ones you might think of.

He was one of the guys that really made me want to be a lawyer, but God sort of had other plans for my life, which I wrestle with but in the end submit to his will as He is God and I can't do much about that, which is a good thing.

Tomorrow I'll probably hang with the in laws and go up to San Marcos, a three mile long out let mall. The thing is monstrous and I should hope to finally find a christmas present for wifey. If I don't there, I'm pretty much hopeless. I've shopped via online for about 4 hours. --The voices of the girls down stairs are getting more high pitched so my time is running short.... SEND HELP!

I wish i had a car I'd go see a movie.. but alas we flew. I told wife I wish we had driven to save moolah and also give me something to do. Welll my time is up!!!

Willy Wonka and Johnny Dep looks like a Woman Factory

   So i watched a clip of the new Wonka movie directed by Tim Burton, starring Johnny Dep, and produced I think by Brad Pitt and his wife that friend girl. It looked awful. I loved the first wonka and thought it was a classic that was beyond a remake, it was too good to be remade. To me its like Lawrence of Arabia, you know if they remade it, it would not top the first one. I think I'm being proven right by the latest trailer too, the Wonka (Depp) looks like a woman, which would be fine if he was a cross dresser but thats not in the story. Anyway, I was going to try to remain open minded about the whole remake because I sometimes like Tim Burton's flicks and Johnny Dep is usually in somewhat interesting movies, but this one kind of takes a childhood classic and beats it with the ugly stick. I'm not sure if I can go through a whole film starring at dep with that hairdo. Plus I mean how can you top the original Oompa Loompa, they're unbeatable. Anyway I wish i had a link to the trailer but I don't so go find it and be horrified.

Call of Duty: its the little things that make it great

So I returned call of duty to crabby after a good few weeks of borrowing it. My initial impression was it was just another medal of honor and it didn't do anything that different to justify buying it. So I thought I'd pop in Medal of Honor to just relive the greatness of the game... after about five seconds of playing it I realize, "man this sucks." I hadn't realized how poorly it was composed. Detail, AI, and effects were all sub par. The bullets sort of bounce off the wall without any cool effect, your buddies just sort of sit around and get mowed down by germans, the guns don't sound as cool, and overall it wasn't as good. So after about five minutes MOH is back on the shelf.

Dreaming of Bono

Last night I had a dream that my wife and I were going to see U2 in concert. It was a great ordeal as the entire drive to concert was wraught with trials. Rain, a few detours, and much confusion on the directions. Finally we got there and we're waiting in the lobby, this concert was in a hotel of sorts, when up walks Bono. He starts chatting with my family meanwhile I'm speachless. My mom goes, "Chris isn't this that irish fellow you like so much." I think I make some sort of gutteral, "uh huh" sound. Finally I manage to reach into my backpack and ask, "You autograph thing for me?" He gives me an Irish, "Sure." I fumble and bumble in my pack for about ten minutes pulling out pictures of U2, posters, a few cds, and finally find the Atomic Bomb cd and hand it to him. He signs it upside down and then gets up and informs us he has to get to the show.
      Thing is we do too! But then wifey's mom calls and she's gravely ill. So wifey leaves to be with her mother but allows me to stay to go see the concert. Problem is, I can't figure out how to get there. The Hotel was huge and apparently the complex Hotel spaned four corners of a city street. I look out the window and can see the concert, but cannot for the life of me figure out how to get there. But I figure its all OK, since I got Bono's autograph and can make everyone in the world jealous when I post on my blog that I met Bono... then I woke up.... stupid reality.

Real Tree vs Fake Tree

This year thanks in part to the inlaws, we have a fake tree. I must say it was hard for me to get excited about a faker after growing up with real trees all my life. Last year down in Ft O we had a realbie and it was great, and I thought I had won the battle of real over fake with the wifey...that was until we were given a fakie for free.
      No matter how much i love real pine trees, I like my money more... and 60 bucks for a tree vs free is no real debate. Plus we've already got it set up, decorated and when we go out we don't have to worry about watering it or anything. So we're fakies now and its not that bad. At least now we can leave the tree up to march and not have a floor covered in pine needles.