FMC 3.0

Last night’s drive to work sucked. It obviously wasn’t traffic, it was weather. I hit this freak Thunder Snowstorm. That’s right - a thunderstorm in January - a very rare thing in these parts. Of course, being January, the rain froze into snow. I had vertigo conditions for 15 straight miles. Personally, I hate that. I can handle just about any driving condition, but that one still irks the crap outta me. I hate vertigo. The worst part was the rather large, rather close, bolt of lightning that hit just as I got past the North Smyrna exit. No really any danger, just scared the crap outta me.

So apparently they really really investigate you to prove who you are when you apply for a passport. My parents are getting them for their trip to Costa Rica in the springtime. Apparently whoever does these things had problems with my dad’s last name. (He changed his when they were married, a rather new-age thing to do at the time.) So my parents have been frantically searching for the marriage certificate to prove that they are indeed married, and that is his real name. I sure hope it works out, because if what they did isn’t a legal name change, it might invalidate my birth certificate (though I think my dad was awfulizing when he brought that up.) I sure hope I don’t wake up tonight and find that I’ve been living under an assumed name for nearly 25 years.

Speaking of 25 years, that birthday is gonna be here before I can blink, seeing as the Odyssey rush is in full swing. Before anyone asks - nothing. I don’t want anything. Same deal as Christmas. Besides, I think I’m gonna buy my own, large present this year.

Oh, and did you see this? Looks like Disney is taking a page from the Microsoft rulebook: If you can’t join them, buy them.

So I’ve been sick the last few days. Thanks to one of my favorite Virginians, I’ve got one bitch of a cold. It came in all sneaky, then once inside, declared war. So I decided that my normal “Screw it, my body will heal itself” routine wasn’t the right course this time, and decided that I needed a little OTC help. So, remembering the words of the wise sage Denis Leary, I picked up the comatizing little green gems of wonder. Hopefully the coma will begin shortly.

Oh, and since I have to work tonight, I also picked up the sunny sister to the green stuff, DayQuil. I’ll need that tonight for work. That’s right, I I NyQuil for today, and DayQuil for tonight. And that sentence isn’t backwards.

Lastly, check this out. Yowza. The Jesus Freaks are getting nutty.

Yesterday was a real transition day. The Redskins lost to Seattle (which I saw coming) because Mark Brunell is crap under pressure. I realize it’s armchair quarterbacking, but during the game I was try to yell to Joe Gibbs to put Ramsey in the game. Sure, he’s green, but at least I know he can get the ball more than 5 yards down the field at one time. To be honest, I’ve never been much of a Brunell fan, so I may be biased. Also, I realize that we’d have lost even with Ramsey in the game, but at least I would have felt we did what we had to do to win. I can understand not benching your starter in the regular season, as it may affect morale and stability the rest of the season. But this was the playoffs, it’s win or go home. You play who you have to play to win, and Brunell wasn’t it.

In other news, Congrats to the Broncos for finally proving that the Patriots were overrated. Whether or not the Broncos go to the big game is still an unknown, but the AFC Championship will be an interesting game. The NFC divisional today should be a real slug fest, much like the Washington game last week. Hopefully without the spitting.

But, as the Redskin season comes to an end, Odyssey season officially kicked into high gear with the Spontaneous Festival on Saturday, which was a blast (like most Odyssey things) There’s three more Odyssey things this month, 4 or 5 next month, the tournament in March, and that’s just here in DE. Also in March will be Maryland’s Tournament, and Dad and I are going for 5 tournaments to judge at for the year (Which is one more than last year.) I think that if I ever hit a really big lottery, I’d just be a professional Odyssey of the Mind Judge. Well, I guess it can’t be pro, since its all volunteer, but you know what I mean. I’d just fly around the country judging anywhere they needed me. Maybe I’d even make it to the Texas tournament finally. (I’ve had a standing invitation for years.) So far just DE and MD are definites, and hopefully Worlds gets added to the list. Last year VA was on the list to get to 4. We might add NJ or WV, depending on schedules, and who will take us. Luckily we know people in Odyssey in just about every state, so we should be able to get invites.

You might wonder why I’d want to travel all those hours and miles when I have a tournament here at home. The truth is that while I always have an absolute blast at the Tournament, it’s the one that has the blood and sweat poured into it. It’s the one that keeps you up at night (or during the day) worried about everything. It’s one of the best, and one of the worst days of the year for us. The reason I go to Maryland, or VA, or any other state is that I can just go and have fun. There’s no planning, no worrying about anything, just go and judge and have fun. The reasons to go to Worlds are more involved, but that’s the gist of it.

In other random news, Nighthawk is gonna cross over 13k this week, probably tonight or tomorrow. The other odd thing is that my 3 month trial of XM which should have started at the end of August is still going. That’s a long 3 months. Oh well, works for me. Free is good.

Also, its nice to see that winter might actually try to make an appearance here in the month of January. Don’t get me wrong, I like weather in the mid 50s, but it feels kind of unnatural for the first month of the year. I think there’s snow in the mix today, though it probably won’t amount to much. (Famous last words, right?)

Ah, the after Christmas sale season, when places try to clear their shelves of the stuff they didn’t sell. In the case of one of my favorite places, it was a buy 1 get 1 free deal for TV DVD sets from Sony. Now, while most of the stuff that qualified was crap, there was one thing that made my head turn - Stargate SG1. All 8 seasons, buy one get one free. Yup, I bought all 8 seasons for the price of 4. Quite a steal really. Oh, if you wanna follow suit, I’d recommend the Best Buy on Concord Pike, they had all 8 seasons in stock (Dover didn’t, which is why I went up there in the first place.)

In other news, Odyssey Judging stuff is keeping me busy, and the team counts are gonna make life interesting this year. And the next Odyssey event of the season is this weekend, the new one on the block, the Spontaneous Festival. At least I only have to show up for it, and haven’t had to plan it any. Of course, after this, its non stop planning and work for training days and then the tournament.

Also, I saw that a lot of people have upgraded to wordpress 2.0. I might, but there’d be a lot of code changes I’d have to redo. I mean, I don’t want to have to hunt down and recode all the backend changes I made. Maybe way off sometime that I have free time. Like 2097.

Hrm. Where to start. See, that’s the problem with these things. The longer you put them off, the more crap you have to cover.

First off, Hail to the Redskins for winning the ugliest damn playoff game I’ve ever seen. Worst winning offensive performance ever. Maybe, just maybe, we can get Seattle next week. We did it once this year already, but one never knows.

Hooray for Stargate being back. With no more Star Trek , its nice to have at least some sci-fi coming in. I did get the chance to see the last 10 minutes or so of Battlestar Galactica however, and I think I see why everyone raves about it. Of course, I’d have two seasons to catch up on. Something to ponder, none the less.

Was a busy Sunday, not a whole lot of sleep, but it was nice to see family. Just that whole 5 hours of sleep in 30 some odd hurts.

Oh, and Nighthawk rolled over 12000 miles over the weekend. They just keep piling on.

I’ve been watching the original series of Star Trek, and am just about to wrap up the first season. Its a fun show - the crazy sci-fi theory of the late 60s is just great. Shatner isn’t as crap as everyone says, and they have silly science episodes to, its not all social commentary. See, a lot of people complain that modern star trek is to sci-fi, not enough sandbox. I think they just remember the ones that stick out, which are the wrenching soapbox ones. There’s been some doozies, and some crap. Plus, some of the connections to later stuff (Like the emerging of Khan) tie things up nicely. I think after the series, I’ll catch up on movies. It’s been a while since I’ve seen them.

I’m sure there’s more to cover, but I’ll have to remember it later.