The Holtonian

Updates and My money making idea

Well life is cruising at about 65 mph. I don't know what's going on but I'm praising God that he's in control because I have no idea what I'm doing. We're gearing up for Gene's wedding (aka my oldest bro) in Contitecticut next week. It should be fun, bachelor party, food, hotels, the Constitution state, great times.
     Tomorrow we travel to Birmingham for a wedding shower (Not Pete's). Its crazy we won't be in Chattanooga for a weekend for a while. We may or may not be here the weekend after Pete's wedding it all depends on what's going on with Hunt returning from Iraq. He's got a week of leave and my mom might be throwing a bash up in st. louey that weekend. The military's pretty unpredictable and unreliable so we really can't plan anything.

      Other than that I'm pretty stinkin tired.

      A brief game note: I've gotten really into Zelda on gamecube now. As it turns out it ties into the prior game and sort of tries to explain things a bit. The game definitely gets better as it goes along. But I won't say any more cause the wife will get mad.

      Copper is good, he's got a bump on his back, and I hope it's not a tumor. He crawls under beds a lot so I'm hoping he just whacked his back on the bottom of a bed and got a welt.
      Car stuff: It's going ok, the insurance and repair guy seem to be cool. The car still isn't fixed so we're still driving the red-hot dodge neon. Its an ok car, not bad for a rental... smells funny though.
      There's a car dealer in Chattanooga that is apparently giving neons away if you buy another car, not sure how that works but its peaked my interest. Though I need to go in on it with someone because I don't want/need a neon, I just want a pickup truck. My goal is to get a Nissan Frontier King cab, that's the four-door variety. Basically its an SUV with a bed, but isn't ugly like the Avalanche or the El Camino. I like the Nissan because all their trucks are V6's standard, Toyotas come in a 4 banger so you can get stuck with a truck with a wienie engine. The four doors would give me an opportunity not to have to get a new car when kids come. My sentra's dies a little bit everyday... literally and emotionally. It tends to die if the AC is on and I'm stopped. It's not really worth spending money on fixing so I'm just driving it till she passes away. I've been impressed with the Nissan engine since I've pretty much put it through hell and then some. So if you got about 10k you can spare I could use it to get a new car/truck.
      Actually that's been one of my ideas for a long time, asking people for money. I've thought it'd be cool to start writing letters to rich folk, movie stars, musicians, billionaires, and just start asking for money. Basically something like this...

      Dear Robin Williams, or Bill Gates, or Bono, or Brad Pitt, etc,
               You make a lot of money, you might have a lot of money just sitting there that you don't know what to do with. Well I'm a lower middle class person living in the south. I make a modest income but could really use a little help every now and then. Basically if my house was paid off I'd be set for life almost. I mean the majority of my income goes to paying off the house, and if I owned it out right I could use my money in other areas of life, like seeing your (movies, concerts, buying windows, etc...). What I would need would only be a fraction of what you make per day and you'd be setting me for life. If you could spare a few dollars to an average Joe, I'd greatly appreciate the help. And who knows, maybe you'll get some good publicity out of it.

         Sincerely Chris Holton

Something like that, I don't have the stars' addresses... and I don't want to be arrested for stalking or black mail so I guess I wont' do it. But hey if you know anyone who's got their addresses I'd love to give it a shot.

Car wreck

Well, i worked early all last week so that we could leave early on friday to head down to macon... well that pretty much all went out the window when this happened...

As we were heading down the mountain we made the right at Lulu Lake, and the immediate left to head down the mountain. However a kind and gentle old man failed to stop at the stop sign heading north through the intersection and into our car. I saw the van approaching the intersection and just assumed that they would slow down... as he got closer, I again hoped that they'd start to break... then they were already past the point of no return and crunch! I immediately go back to my training I received in anger management and start cursing like an Irish Sailor. I jump out of the car ready to throw hands with the gent who mashed my car, then this 78 year old southern man (southern old men are cute and endearing) walks out and immediately apologizes and claims responsibility. Which was undeniable but its always nice to get that out of the way.

So as I calmed down and realized tearing my shirt and turning green wasn't necessary, we moved the cars to the pull over right across from the Methodist church and waited for the police to come. It was kind of ironic to call 911 and be a stone's throw from a police station. But the police took the report, the tow truck came, and we got enterprise to pick us up like in the commercials.

It was kind of funny because about 8 people we know drove by on their way around and asked if we were ok.

The whole thing is very frusterating as we really liked that car. But no one was seriously hurt, the wife got a little whip lash but with some back rubs she's feeling better. I sort of hope the car is totaled, just so we don't have to have this car that's jury-rigged and put back together, a frankencar if you will. But we'll take it to the fix it man and let them decide that. Basically a car is totaled if it costs more to fix it than it does for a new one. I doubt its totaled, though the damage is more severe than that picture lets on. But we realize far worse things have happened so we're counting the many blessings we have.

But we could use prayer that it would all work out.

I love Holton

Love for me is in the air... yet again.
Rootey Tootey Fresh and Fruity

Josiah "Will someone come over and play with me?" Roe

Super Mesh

Freddy

RyeDawg

Lang

Disclaimer: If I didn't edit your blog it means one of a few things

1. I didn't have access
2. I don't know you that well and am not ready for that step in our relationship
3. I figure these are the few people who won't beat me up for this... Rye Dawg might but he's in NY and I'm GA.

Blogolition

So my new pet peave is people who don't update their blogs. I went through my blog roll on the side and some of these friendinos of mine haven't updated their blastes blogs since Smarch! I mean come on! (Smarch is a reference to a funny Simpsons not a typical Cholton Typo). So if you haven't updated your blog and wish to keep my link on me blog then you best get to bloggin. Especially some of the people that I'm actually interested in reading their blogs, I mean some of the people I could care less about... just kidding. So I may be cutting some of the links here soon, especially for folks whose blogs are blank or are 5 months out of date.

Look i gotta complain about something... life's too good to complain about everything else.

Some grim news: Obscene's getting married soon, that's not the grim news by the way, but the wife and I were going to make a trip out of it and try to see New York New York (Gene's getting hitched in Contitecuticut)... but after calculating the expenses and adding up all the money in our swear jar its just not going to add up. Its that blasted swear jar, if only there was more money in it, I mean I guess I don't drop enough F bombs... stupid Swear Jar! But its kind of a bummer and I feel bad for wifey as she was really looking forward to it. The train ride alone was going to cost 80 bucks for the two of us. I figure I can show her around Contitecticut... though she may get bored after five minutes. But there are some fun things to do there... not sure what they are but I'm sure we'll find something. In all seriousness the country side up there is quaint and there are a lot of little places to go to. I told her I'd make it up to her with a real trip to NY where we spend longer than 8 hours or so there, possibly an anniversary of sorts.

But we are looking forward to the wedding and that's the real reason for the trip so we'll have a blast even without that stupid New York! I mean I hate the Yankees, Mets, Giants, Jets, Knicks, and Rangers anyway.

Oh and get your brooms out cause the Cards just swept the Houston Astros... gotta love it.

Movie Saturday

Man... I watched some movies today. I woke up and played some Zelda Wind Waker, and am starting slowly to get the hang of it. So, I won't condemn it till i'm done with it.

But the main bulk of my day was spent watching movies. I was itching to see War of the Worlds after it got postive reviews from Mesh, Roe, Haddon, and Crabby but the wife didn't want to see it, she wanted to read. So we compromised or divided and conquered and I saw the movie and she went to Barnes and Noble.

War of the Worlds was pretty darn good though very very hard to watch. I think I even teared up at a moment, its just very gut wrenching. The coming destruction of mankind is a pretty depressing thing to grasp with. Tom Cruise did a good job, heck a great job, I didn't even get the feeling I was watching Tom Cruise. I got the feeling I was watching a dead beat dad who's just trying to figure out how to protect his kids during an alien invasion. Dakota Fanning was pretty darn good too, Tim Robbins... well he was as creepy as everyone said he was. This movie really reminded me of Jaws, it captured that sense of dread. Its not fear so much, I mean fear comes from the unknown i think in alot of ways. But with War of the Worlds, we know what our fear is, we know what to fear, so the fear turns into dread because the viewer knows that humans have pretty bad odds on this one. I mean I don't have a death ray... the aliens do. It was very Jaws esque, you know what's out there, you know the villain, now its just a matter of how are they going to survive this? And will they defeat it or just aim to survive? So hopefully that didn't ruin it too much, I spoke as generally as I could. Though I must say the ending was great, very much to my satisfaction. Did not have nearly the cheese of Independence Day or the anti-climatic nature of Signs (though i love signs still a lot).

I think Signs went more for the fear aspect as Shallymallybig bang tends to do. He goes for fear of the unknown. Whereas Spielberg (Wells) is like, "Look these aliens are here for one reason only... to kill us."

I do think some of the critics have it right that the aliens themselves were a bit cliche, they looked almost exactly like the Independence Day ones only smaller. But it wasn't really about them anyway, its more about the struggle of mankind.

So then we came home, relaxed, didn't mow due to rain. Then we went to babysit.

The people wifey sits for are pretty well off, and have a million DVDs, some of movies I didn't think anyone would ever watch or purchase the DVD of. Dickie Roberts Child Star... I mean was that even a movie?

But we watched Anger Management, which was way funnier than I was expecting. Jack Nicholson was great, I love him in comedies and Batman films.

Then we watched the Stepford Wives. Which wasn't as bad as people made it out to be. Not great, kind of dumb, but not as bad as a lot of people made it seem. It did have one of the funniest lines, "I thought to myself where could I hide a town full of robots and no one would notice.... of course Conneticut." Hahaha take that Contitecticut.

So it was a good day of movies. Relaxing.

Musical thoughts

Tonight we went out to the Las Mas, las margaritas. Good mexican food at a decent price. Chatty has one thing down, mexican food. I mean its not San Antonio by any means but hey, its pretty good. Las Mas, Taco Bell, and that Taco shack next to the chicken processing plant, we got some good places. Oddly enough I didn't drink anything... there, I did buy a BL on the way home and drank a few at the Roe's.

Not much happening, work's good.

I plan on mowing this weekend again. This week was a one two punch for grass growing it rained at night and was sunny most of the day. So the grass grew back intensely fast.

Man summer's fastly going by. Its intense. Before I know it I'll be watching my little Obscene Gene go down the aisle in Contitecticuted.

I started Zelda Windwaker on a gaming dork note. I'm not too into it. My attention span for games isn't what it used to be. I need a game that is easy to pick up and down, Zelda's one where you play in four hour timespans.. which tends to get me in trouble with the wizife.

I'm in a real CD buying craving thing now, though lack of financial funds keeps me from doing anything about it. I wish Itunes had AC DC on it... but alas no such luck. A few CDs/bands I'm wanting to get cds of are as follows:

Blink 182... yes I know they're sort of lame highschool rock, but i like that genre. Granted they hacked the Green Day sound abit, but their songs have a more comical edge to them and kind of remind me a bit of the Ramones.

White Stripes... alas i have zero of their albums though I borrowed one from Crabb. I need to get the new one too.

Beck's Guero... I downloaded the Gameboy variations but I want the real thing and am really into the album though never listened to the whole thing.

There's a few U2 songs i want off their complete u2 thing on itunes though don't want to pay for the whole thing. They're of course ones you can't buy individually. Paying 150 for all those songs when i already own most of them is rediculous.

Sufjan (Which for the longest time I thought was spelled SURFJAN)was pretty cool, roe Ipoded it up here tuesday night and I must say I liked it a lot.

Also I want the new Ryan Adams stuff and the new Coldplay despite everyone's beefs about the mediocrity of it.

Here's my thing: I'm a fan of bands first, then music. I can like a band's worst CD because its the band I like first, i like what they try to convey, i like their ethos or their theme, i like their tone and even though their CD might be subpar it could still ring true to the tone, theme, or whatever they portray. Coldplay's new one sticks to the same theme and tone of their others but its more of the same, which is a valid complaint. But its not too terrible, its just nothing new under the sun. So I kind of like it the more I hear it but I realize its pretty much a rehash of what they've already accomplished.

The same can be said for Ryan Adams, some of his lesser popular cds are some of my favorites because i like the tone. I like Love is Hell 1/2 because I think it builds on a lot of the themes and tone of Gold and Demolition. The new stuff is good too from what I tunes has showed me in its 30 second clips. This is why I like Pop and or All You Can't Leave Behind (which one of these is probably your least favorite U2 album) but i like both because they both convey something U2 is trying to sell you on. I think its something that there is more to this life than the surface. I think that's one thing U2 has stuck with, in the 90s they went about it in a cynical way that sort of mocked materialism and popularism (in a lot of ways they mocked their own popularity), and now they just overtly sort of "preach" against superficiality and meaninglessness... at least that's what I get a lot out of it, a desire to search for more meaning in life.

So that's my thing, so don't get too frusterated when I say i like Joe Blow's New CD even though the entire world thinks it sucks. It might suck but if I like Joe Blow i might just like the CD a lot.

Another example of this is Jason Harrod's new CD. Its not my cup of tea, not my style, i like his old stuff better. But I'm a fan of him and what his music portrays and sings about. Which his new CD maintains the themes of his earlier stuff just produces it in a form different from what we're used to from him. So I like the album even though its entirely different than his prior ones and in a lot of ways and in some parts I just really don't like the melody/music but I love the lyrics and theme of the song. I'd really love it if he could make an entire CD that flowed well and carried a consistent theme/story from begining to end. A lot of his CDs seem to be a collection of songs that go together theme wise but don't sort of fit musically sometimes. I want a song to end and then roll into the next and not miss a beat almost. A constant flow of melody and lyrics, that'd be really cool, though really hard.

Not much happening

Well... nothing's happening... sorry. I've played some video games... went to work everyday, hung out with my wife, the roes' last night, and that's just about it. We're sort of in cruise control right now. I could blog about the All star game, but whats to say... it was boring.

I guess I'll talk about Hockey:
It appears to be back, both sides will agree to this deal cause frankly they're tired of looking like idiots, the players realize they dropped the puck (pun intended) and are just biting the bullet before more people lose jobs and more teams are sold. The Blues are the biggest franchise to be put on the auction block. It annoys me they're being sold considering they're owned by a Walmart lackey... i think he can take the hit. I wish i could front the cash for him but that mower cleaned me out. Though my problem with the new hockey season starting is there are going to be a lot of rule changes. No more red line, less padding on the goalies, penalties for intentionally flinging the puck into the stands... and some other ones. These are all aimed at opening up the net and making some more higher scoring games. Granted I think the only thing that needs to be done is lessen the pads for the goalies, that's really the only thing that changed drastically over time. Penalties and what not will maybe make the game go faster. Also the no tie thing is huge, I've been to so many freakin Blues and Atlanta game that ended in ties... its such a let down, you feel like you should get your money back. And plus from a points driven standings system it just sort of leaves everybody at the same place, its better when someone goes up and someone goes down. Thus the shootout system will be much better.

I was talking to Roe and I think some of the old dominating power house teams will be hurt by these new rules and the work stoppage. The Blues and Wing especially are really old, a lot of their old stars are just dang old, Yzerman's 40, Lindstrom's 43, Cujo 38, Ktachuck 36, Weight... he might be 80 i'm not sure. The Wings will bounce back, its hockey town USA (I hate that name... such a crock... not really but it still annoys me)... the Blues will have a harder time especially with change in ownership.

Hockey... I'll forgive you.. not the owners, not the players... but i'll forgive the sport. And since the AHL wasn't televised I'll gladly go back the NHL as long as I can watch a game here and there.

What's the deal with seeing Jerry Seinfeld Live?

So Roe calls me up tonight and offers me a ticket to see the Jerry Seinfeld comedy show tonight for free. I being of a sane mind took him up on the offer. The tickets came courtesy of a young talented Mr. Mesh. They were decent seats, nothing I could complain about that's for darn sure.

I had a strong desire to see this show when it buzzed through Chattanooga last year and that desire was still strong this year, but the price of the tickets was just too high to warrant going. But free is definately in my price range.

He opened up with a guy names BLANK... Papa (I can't remember his first name). He was pretty good and got the crowd reved up for Jerry. The opening act guy did a lot of marriage and children humor which is good and can relate for the most part.

Then the Maestro came out. The current King of Comedy, Jerry "My Television Friend" Seinfeld. He had some hilarious bits, some decent bits, and some that I thought were just ok. But for the most part I was dying the whole time. My personal favorite was his bit on Terrorism. He basically made fun of Jihadist Terrorists and how blowing themselves up is pretty stupid, especially when they screw up and blow up themselves and no one else. Though some could say this is pretty ill-timed due to today's transdoings, I think it made light of how seriously stupid Islamic Jihadists are with their suicide bombings. He likened them to modern day Wyle Coyote's, strapping giant explosives to their backs in the hopes of killing the road runner but missing the road runner and blowing themself up in the process... well ok explaining the joke doesn't do it justice and really doesn't convey the humor at all, but trust me their was humor and laughing.

He also has some new insight into marriage now that he's married, and has some insight into kids.

What's great is he comes across as so casual and down to earth that you feel like he's just hangin out with you. You feel like its him, whoever you came to the show with and yourself and you're just sitting back crackin jokes. It was a great time and I'm so glad i got the experience.

"show a lot of things

"show a lot of things happening at once, remind everyone of whats going on, every shot show a little improvement, to show it all would take too long, that's called a montage..."

Random Thoughts

I almost went to the braves game tonight. Some guys from youth group invited me to the cubs bravos game last minute and we almost went but we all sort of chickened out at the last second due to traffic and the last minuteness of it all. I'm glad I didn't go though because it's been rained delayed for a while.

All I gotta say wifey is, "Missing you sucks almost as much as that movie Pearl Harbor... and I wish Cuba Gooding Jr was in that movie more because he's a better actor than Ben Affleck."

Duck Tours, The Back Inn Cafe should back out of the restaurant business, and Honda vs Toro who will win the prize to be my mower?

We had a busy weekend with my folks in town. We finally got the Armoire done and set up so a restful weekend was much deserved. My parents got in Saturday morning and we hung out for a bit and then went to Lunch at Sticky Fingers. Then we hit the boats

Duck boats that is. We took the duck tour and despite some nasty rain it was a lot of fun. It was great to see the city from a unique perspective, and I'd recommend it to anyone who didn't already own a boat, if you own a boat then just go putz on the river and you'll get the idea.

Then we came back home and wife made some great dinner, egg plant parmesian... good stuff. Sunday we churched it and then hung out at home all day, napped and all that then went to the Back Inn Cafe For dinner.

I must say the Back Inn was a bit of a let down. I hadn't eaten there in a good 10 years or so and it really isn't worth the price of admission. The scenery/setting is great, overview of the river. But the room we were in had the worst accoustics (Hard wood floors, windows, wood walls, wood ceiling, I mean we couldn't hear ourselves think it was so loud. Mainly it was one party that was drinking and was very obnoxious and as soon as they left it got better but it still some curtains or something could really cut down on the noise. That and I didn't get my Caeser salad when everone else got theres, and they didn't give me a free desert or anything. And we're not talking about a few minutes, it was a good 15/20 minutes after the wife got her salad that I got my salad, and then it wasn't even that great--its the same one that Tony's serves. The dinner itself was ok, but definately not worth the price they charged. I mean it was good but not that great. St. Johns or Canyon Grill would have cost the same amount and would have been a 100 times better. Part of the problem is the food just lacks any sort of punch, its all sort of bland. I thought that problem was only related to Tony's Pasta but apparently its pretty much infected the entire art district. So I won't be going back there anytime soon.

But the evening was good. We watched the fire works from the balcony of the Art Museum, which wasn't as good of a spot as I had hoped, but we beat traffic which was really what I was going for.

Today was a different story, wifey left for Clarksville TN to spend the week with a friend up there. SO i'm batching in. My parentals took me to Home Depot (Yep Crabb I finally spent money at Home Depot) for my 25th birthday (a month or so early). We chipped in (parents and I) and got myself a super swank Honda Mower. They were going to get me a Toro but I said I'd pay the difference and spring for the Honda.

Here's why I went for the Honda (warning this is sort of boring.. .but so is most of my blog).

A Toro motor is great, no problem with the Toro. But here's the thing: Toro's cheaper models come with a Tecumseh engine. Their top of the line mower comes with a Briggs and Stratton engine. Now any mower you buy at Lowes has a briggs and Stratton engine, my current mower has a briggs and stratton, my pressure washer has a briggs and stratton, Lawn Boy's have briggs and Stratton, and Murray's have Briggs and Stratton. Pretty much everyone has a Briggs and Stratton. So if all mowers pretty much come with the Briggs/Stratton motor, why do the Toro (which is a better brand than most) come with a Tecumseh motor on its cheaper ones? If the nicest Toro comes with a Briggs and Stratton and retails for 469 or so, then why not just spring for a Murray that's cheaper and get the same motor with a cheaper brand? Pretty much its the engine that makes the mower, all the other stuff can be easily fixed and replaced when it breaks, but the engine has to last. So that sort of weirded me out, so I opted to go with the most trusted engine in the world... Honda.

And on another Honda note, i found a honda pressure washer for only 30 bucks more than I paid for mine, and it had more PSI, but less horse power... how that works I have no idea.

So i got a great Honda mower, and won't probably use it till Thursday or so. Though I may use my other one just to use up all the gas in it. If anyone wants a mower that still runs let me know, I'll sell it cheap, I also have a gas grill super cheap.

So overall a great 4th o july. Its been real laid back and oddly enough I feel like my head's been in the clouds. But the work week will bring me back to normal I guess.

Operation Armoire Completed

Well we finally finished the Armoire/Entertainment center. Its none too soon too since the fumes were starting to get to us. We've worked on it for the past week and are pretty happy with the results. Though we have a problem since one of our couchs sort of prohibits one of the lower doors from opening all the way. But as I pointed out to my wife that's the door that covers the Gamecube so it might mean me playing less... she's not counting on that though. But even with that minor inconvienace, and a re-arranging of a few pictures the piece looks good. A little big compared to our other smaller furniture, and our lower ceilings but hey its great, and hides the TV which is what I'm all about.

Here's the Before picture

Here it is after the Staining... (Obviously we took the doors off)

Here is where I got it into place by wiggling it back into the corner...

Here's wife workin on some doors, getting the hinges on...

And finally its done...

The colors aren't really right on most of the those shots. The stain was darker on the stain shot, wife had a bit of a tan/red today from being at the pool, and the last one its not that dark. I mean its dark but not that dark. ITs a matter of my sony flash its either too much, the flash picture was just all glare. Whereas when I turn it off I get whatever the camera gives me.

But its done, I got the TV, DVD, and Gamecube already hooked up (i let it dry all day today, about 24 hours). The TV barely fit in it, which was scary, it would stink if it didnt' fit. But it worked out great. I doubt if the wife and I will ever tackle something that large for staining purposes but I think we'd both like to go the unfinished furniture route, we're also going to try our hand at making some furniture. The wife wants a little desk and I'll probably start snooping around the internet for some designs.

My TV stand is won't be able to be used just yet. I was hoping I could use it for the main TV in the living room but the stand won't cover the DVD player so I'll have to make a bigger one and save this one for the future TV in our bedroom.

The Next project will be finishing the fence though. Due to the rain I've left that be for a while, but hopefully we'll get some weeks where I can count on no rain or something so i can get out there, pressure wash and paint in the same week.

We also bought a Ceiling fan from lowes for 30 bucks. Seemed like a good deal and we have two that may need replacing. I'm not sure if they're that bad off but 30 bucks for a celing fan's a good deal even if you don't need one. The one in our office is eh, but we don't need a new one in here. I may replace one of the guest bed room ones upstairs.

Tomorrow(well today Its late) the parentals are rolling in. They stopped at Nashville due to fatigue of the road. So we'll have some lunch and then maybe go to the new Art Museum or possibly do the ducks, I've always wanted to do the Duck Tour down town.

Armoire Adventures Part 2

So I and the wife, or the wife and I for those with good grammar, are nearly done with the Armoire/entertainment center. We stained it on monday, let it sit for a few days, and then started lackering or polyurethaning, or whatever term you use, on Wednesday. We did our third and final coat tonight and its looking pretty good.
      Staining went pretty good, we had some mess ups but nothing too too terrible. And sometimes I think the wood and the stain just didn't interact well so it was nothing we did wrong necessarily. Lackering (what i call it) was a little more difficult. It was really tough doing the first coat, as it was really easy to make a mistake and hard to fix said mistake. The second and third coats were easy but getting that first coat to stick and do what you wanted was difficult. The third coat seemed almost a joke because it was almost as if the wood was like, "No thanks, I've had enough." You couldn't really tell much of a difference in the texture. I mean I smoothed some things out which helped but most of the surface was already defined and set in.
      My little side project went well too, a little hutch for the TV to stand on and the DVD player to go under. The thing, I made it for the bedroom TV and DVD player, but we sold our bedroom TV. So this stand is sort of without a purpose right now until we can get a few more sha-molees and go buy a cheapo TV for the bed room. History: We bought one a few days ago at Walmart for cheap but got it home, set it up, and found a giant gash in the side so took it back and decided to wait on buying another one. But i have some extra lumber and will probably make another one for the new armoire so we can have our dvd player and tv in the same unit and not have to use one of our shelves. Its pretty simple... granted I haven't put it together yet, but the cutting the wood and staining and all that's a breeze.

      My folks are coming in town tomorrow so we're rushing to get the house in semi-order. That's mostly why I took the day off tomorrow to clean and get things set up. Wifey's been Nannying like a fiend which is good because money is good.

      On a U2 note, i listened/watched Live from Boston while I was working and realized I really don't like that concert. The Slane DVD is so much better that its sort of dull to watch boston, it just doesn't have the same passion that Slane does. I'm hoping they come out with a Vertigo DVD, especially since I probably won't get to see any shows this time around.