What have I been doing?
Random, unordered list of things that have been up with me.
- First flowers of spring! I have a mini crocus, a daffodil and something else that bugs really like to eat, but I can't remember the name of, all in bloom. I'll try to get pictures later.
- Swami, Churlish and I played the "Endless Set List" (58 songs) on hard in Rock Band last Saturday. It took about 6 hours (with lunch and breaks thrown in) to finish. We didn't even have to redo any songs! I think we had about 7 three star songs, and the rest were four/five stars. I now have a new achievement for it. You can take a look at my achievements at this really cool website called www.trueachievements.com which basically screenscrapes from xbox.com and helps you to track your achievements, and see which other achievements might be easy for you to get. My gamertag is UniformWinter. I really like the site, and ended up donating. Also been playing a lot of Ticket to Ride, an XBox live adaptation of the board game. I've never played the board game itself, but I really like this game. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes train games.
- I finished the last of the sparkling wine that treiza sent up from CA. The final bottle was the Domaine Chandon Sparkling Red, a combination of Pinot Noir and Zinfandel. I really enjoyed it. It was unlike any champagne/sparkling wine that I've tasted before. Probably because it tasted like a red, but was fizzy. Very nice change of pace.
- I took the train up to Vancouver last week for work. I was originally very confused because my boss told me to take the train, because it was cheaper. It had cost me $30 in gas two weeks before to drive up and back, so I couldn't figure out why it would be cheaper. It turns out that we get $0.50/mile, so my car ride cost them $145, while the train tix were $60. Anyway, went up for customer meetings, which went fairly well.
- Swami and I played games at M&M&m&m's house last Friday. We went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant, then M and Swami put m&m to bed and the games commenced. &M likes Trans America, so we played a couple of games of that. Then I sort of begged and got everyone to play Pandemic. I hadn't played it before, but had gotten two strong recommendations. Everyone liked it and we had a good time playing, although we lost. I want to play again. :)
- I'm not buying a Kindle 2. I had one ordered before the official announcement (even got an email from Amazon saying that they were upgrading my Kindle order to a Kindle 2). Once I was able to look at the feature set, though, I decided I wasn't paying $359 for it. Here's what it's got going for it: Replaced the annoyingly clickable next/prev page buttons with something else [small plus, but I already know how to hold mine, thanks], replaced the scrolly wheel thingy with a little eraser-style joystick for navigation [whatever, that's certainly nice, but the old way works], added text to speech [um, I read, thanks], added more memory [nice!], took away the SD card slot [hey! no fair!], and have a slightly faster page refresh [that extra 50 milliseconds will surely be the death of me].
- I've read a lot of books. At some point, I'll try to give mini reviews. Plus I want to do a breakdown of my Kindle spending to see if I got my money's worth.