January 2011 State of the Union

The Union is good, baby!!! :D

And when I refer to "the Union", I am, of course, referring to me.

That is to say, things are groovy here in my little universe! :D

Just a couple of days ago my Gnomey-Goddess texted me to tell me that she was cooking, and to ask what dish I would like her to cook for me when we finally get together!

I mean, HOW frickin' COOL IS THAT?!!!

This is an AMAZINGLY hot chick who has stuck with me in a long-distance relationship for 4 years (because, in 4 years, I'm still trying to figure out how to make a living that can bring us together finally) and the question pops into her mind, "I wonder what dishes Ray Jay will want me to cook for him."

OMG!!! How AWESOME is that!!! :D

Now don't get me wrong here: When Gnomey and I are married, I'm not looking for a life where she cooks and cleans and I drink beer and watch TV or anything. lol In fact, I am actively trying to develop my culinary abilities now, so that when Gnomey & I are together I'll have an array of dishes I can cook for her. I'm not fantasizing about subjugating my future wife and cramming her into some 1950s Americana fantasy of "how it was back in the Good Ol' Days", lol. (Dude, she would so kick my ass if I even tried that crap, and that's a lot of what I love about her!!!)

Still...you have to be overwhelmingly flattered to find out that your lady thinks about things like what dishes you would like her to cook for you!!! OMG!!! :D

So Ray Jay's doing well right now!!!

And then, on top of that, thanks to some very generous Christmas money from my mom, step-father and Gan-Gan, I NOW OWN A KINDLE!!!

I got the Wi-Fi variety (I'm paranoid that if I had gotten the 3G version, they would find a way to charge me a monthly bill for the 3G service later on, down the road; besides, Wi-Fi gets me books just fine, thank you very much!) and I splurged and bought the protective case with a built-in book light, and I bought an extra recharge cord, and then I bought a small library of books for my Kindle! (Most of them are paranormal reference books that I will be dipping into from time to time for the foreseeable future.)

AND...I converted a text file of a friend's NaNoWriMo novel and downloaded it to my Kindle, and you would not believe how much easier it is to read off my Kindle versus reading it off my laptop!!!

I'm not trying to sell you on the Kindle, mind you, I'm just crowing about my new toy...but THE KINDLE IS SO AMAZING TO READ FROM!!!

Okay, it fits in your hand like a paperback novel, only BETTER because it's a fraction of the width and weight! But you can adjust the size of the text so that it is as large as a hard cover OR LARGER, so the print is actually easier to read! Plus, there is a Page Forward and Page Backward button, one on top of the other, on BOTH sides of the device! So you can flip forward or back by pressing your thumb (righty or lefty)! So you can tear through some prose if you're really exited about what you're reading!

And check it out...The Kindle power cord can be plugged into your computer, OR it can be plugged into A WALL SOCKET!!! they somehow managed to design an adapter that can recharge a media device FROM A WALL SOCKET!!! (My iPod and my OPAL mp3 player both have to be recharged from a computer! Not my Kindle!)

So all the great things my friends have been telling me about the Kindle? ALL TRUE!!!

I'm particularly jazzed about the fact that I can control the typeface (/font size)! When I joined Texas Spirits, Paula wanted us all to read Ghost Hunter's Guidebook by Troy Taylor, because there were several newbies joining the team all at once, and she (very astutely) wanted to make sure we were all on the same page about investigation technique. So I bought the book, and I was frustrated by the font and typeface that the publisher had chosen! First, it was a smaller press, so they chose a smaller typeface (font size) so that they could print more words on fewer pages. (It's a sound economical choice, but harder on the reader.) But they had also chosen a "spooky" font, so the words were even more of an eyestrain! Despite Taylor's excellent information and writing style, the book was such an annoyance to get through!

If I had had my Kindle back then (I don't think I could have afforded the Kindle back then, honestly; I think they were $240 or something) I could have changed the font and typeface to my preferences and zoomed through the book in no time!

And here's another nice point...

I have maybe 10 books loaded on there now -- 8 of which I want to keep on there; and one of the books is actually all 5 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novels plus a Zaphod Beeblebrox short story!!! -- and I've barely made a dent in the 3-Gig storage capacity!!!

Very soon I will load ALL the Sherlock Holmes novels/short stories by Arther Conan Doyle, and I'll bet I still have way more than 2 Gigs of storage!

So life is way-groovy right now! :)

Then, last night, I woke up to a Little Caesar's breakfast! Brian was asleep, but he had, apparently, ordered us both some Little Caesar's before he passed out! He got me Sausage & Mushroom, but he had slipped in 2 slices of his Pepperoni & Mushroom for my dining pleasure!!!

HOW FRICKIN' COOL IS THAT?!! Little Caesar's doesn't deliver, so my little brother went out (in the rain) and picked up these tasty pizza pies for us to enjoy!!! He wasn't even awake to receive the praise when I discovered this, lol! He's just all "Here's some awesome food that will drive you mad with pleasure; I'm going to sleep now"!!!

My only consolation is that I have recently discovered Alessi Pesto, which can turn a piece of buttered bread into a gourmet Italian snack food. It also turns pasta, butter and Parmesan Cheese into a meal you feel like you should have paid $50 for!

PESTO RULES!!! :D

So I'm trying to convince myself not to feel guilty about this ASTOUNDING gift of delicious food my brother has given me.

Also, Brian & I have become re-obsessed with magic, lol! When we discovered Chriss Angel and Mindfreak back in 2006 (thanks to Our Genius Friend Dave) our childhood interest in performing magic tricks re-ignited. Angel makes a traditional illusion feel like he just invented it on the spot.

No, that's not it: Angel makes an illusion feel (somehow) like he's performing REAL MAGIC.

So anyway, this year Angel released several magic tricks to toy stores, including this huge set with 250 illusions. (You get the props/gags for, like, 12 illusions, but the How-To book tells you how to do many, many variations on those illusions. so you're really getting something like 75 different illusions. You could perform a 90-minute magic show with what you get, if the people you're performing for have never seen a single magic show in their life.)

For Christmas, I persuaded Santa to give Brian this Chriss Angel magic set.

Brian frickin' LOVED it!!! I swear, I think it has been a long time since I got my brother such a PERFECT gift! This has fired-up his imagination and enthusiasm in ways I simply could not have predicted!

AND...it lead him to do some research, which revealed that there was a 500-illusion Chriss Angel set out there!

His first thought was to buy the 500-illusion set for me, and borrow any props/gags he needed (should he find himself performing magic). But I finally convinced him that he (because of his enthusiasm and interest) should own the more complete magic set. His nature is to want others (particularly his brother) to have more than he has, but I finally logic-ed him into simply buying the set for himself.

To make a long story short(er), we've been watching Seasons 1 & 2 of Mindfreak (the only seasons we own) a lot lately, and we've been talking a lot about illusion-performance technique.

To be perfectly honest, I am dying to make salt disappear into my fist, and then pour it onto the table for somebody!!! Or to disappear a signed dime and make it reappear somewhere else!!! But I don't find myself in many social gatherings, and anyway I should probably practice more before I perform these tricks in public.

So 2011 has been pretty magical for me, so far.

Ooh!

I went to the store to buy some beer for the weekend, and I found a copy of Season 4 of Samurai Jack for $10!!!

$10!!!

I bought it!

Gendy Tartakovski is one of the most BRILLIANT animators (we're talkin' Brad Bird-/John Lasseter-/Phil Vischer-/Matt Groening-brilliant) of our generation, and I get to own a whole season (the final season, even) of his work for $10!!!

So that's what I plan to fall asleep to tonight (/today, I guess).

OH!!! AND...

Last Saturday Brian & I got to see TRON: Legacy for the 3rd time at the Lake Creek Alamo Drafthouse!!! I had Fried Pickles while I watched the flick! (First time -- excluding a failed attempt to make my own a couple of years ago -- since the late-80s that I've enjoyed that particular taste sensation!)

TRON: Legacy (in 3-D) so friggin' ROCKS!!!

Okay, it's way past time for me to go to bed...

I hope you all have an EXCELLENT weekend!!!

PEACE & LAUGHTER!!!

:D