The clock is ticking down to our first annual Wizzer Family Camping Trip! I want to make it a point to start camping at least once a year (if not more.) With Andrew coming out, I know it will start to mean more to do things like this together. As an added bonus, Amy has never been camping. Ever. With this in mind I have opted for the easy style of camping…..KOA. Yeah, the whole “Your camping cause your sleeping in a tent, but not really cause your 30 steps from the pool” camping. It will be a fun way to get out of the house and see a little bit of nature.

On the list of things to see are Shenandoah National Park, Luray Caverns, and Skyline drive. I will need to stop by the store tonight and buy some food stuffs for the trip. You know the usual, hot dogs, smores stuff, burgers, etc. When we come back either Amy will have loved it and want to go a lot more, or I will be posting a tent for sale! Wish me luck!

Wow, I just looked at the clock and realized that I had not posted anything yet! Shouldn’t be a really big post as not much happened this weekend. The general plan was to take things easy. I still wasn’t feeling well after the freaking head cold I caught. Amy also had a take home test she needed to work on for school. Friday was very much the usual, gaming until pretty late. Which of course means that Saturday morning was a late morning. I accidentally got sucked into playing WoW a lot longer than I had planned on Sat morning (afternoon?) So we really didn’t get going till like 1pm.

So the plan was to get some stuff for the truck. I have been needing a specific thing for the truck for a while now and finally decided to just go get it. First stop was going to be . Not really my first choice but easy because of location. They had a decent selection, but I thought I might be able to get a better price at Tweeter. When I got to Tweeter I set about looking for the guy I always dealt with there. I believe his name was Brian. He installed some other things in the truck and was the reason I came back. Instead I got stuck with this moronic salesman who didn’t really know what I wanted. He proceeded to tell me about a system I didn’t want and how I would have to pay extra for a functionality that I already had in the truck, but this new part would disable it so I’ll have to pay to have it turned back on. Needless to say, I walked out.

It got to be about time for lunch so we stopped at a new place called Pars. It’s a Persian restaurant on Lee Hwy. I thought it would be nice to try something different. I wish I had done more research about it though. It wasn’t that great. I ordered Kabobs and got an odd version of meatloaf. The dining area was nice, but I should have taken that we were the only people in there on a Saturday afternoon as a sign.

While our stomachs were busily working on digesting that lovely thing the Persians at Pars called lunch, we headed out to see Batman Begins. This was by far the best Batman movie mad to date. It was dark like Batman is supposed to be. It had just enough humor to lighten the situations, and it defiantly sparked a variety of emotions. Everything about the movie was entirely believable, the technology, the car, even the city. Nothing was so outlandish that you had to blame Hollywood for it. Just about the only thing I didn’t like was the event of Bruce’s parents dying. The original origin of Batman has him going to the movies with his parents. The movie they say was “The Mark of Zorro.” This draws the parallel between Zorro, a masked vigilante who cares for the people of his town, to Batman, a masked vigilante who fights crime for the people of his city. The movie plants the seeds that grow into what Batman is. Outside of that, the movie was Awesome. Go See it!

Sunday wasn’t all that exciting for me. Amy caught the cleaning bug and went about making the house immaculate. While I tried to clean, the chest infection kept me tired and winded (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.) One thing we did do was to Test out our new Tent for the upcoming camping trip. I’ll go into that more later on this week. Hope everyone had a good weekend!

It feels weird to be posting on a Thursday. I feel like I need to post because I didn’t post yesterday, but, it’s Thursday, so I normally just wait for Friday to post. Well, I figured that since it was an odd day for posting, I would post on an odd subject.

My living room has turned into my collector’s room. I really didn’t plan on this. When I moved into the apartment, I had originally planned to make the living room as normal as possible, and maybe have another room decorated with all of the Sci-Fi stuff. After about 4 months of bare walls, I thought “I can just put up the Pictures, that’s not too bad.” As you can guess, it just went all downhill from there. I really don’t mind having it all there, but it’s just growing and growing. Pretty soon, I am going to be that Guy with all the collectible stuff in his Living room. OH WAIT! Please keep in mind, I have a normal life. I am not completely obsessed with Star Wars. I like it, I enjoy collecting. But if I had a fire and it all burned down, I would not be committing Hari Kari.

Lets start with the entry way. As you enter the door, on the right hand side, is my computer desk. It’s usually very cluttered so I didn’t get a picture directly of it. Instead I took a shot above it where I have a variety of Light Sabers. You can see at the Top there is Darth Vaders Saber, and Lukes Saber. Below those are a Small blue saber that came with the Talking Yoda, and then a Custom built “Old Republic” Style saber. Down below those are two more custom built sabers, one has a wooden dowel built into it for filming purposes.

To the right of this wall is the window and above that are two more sabers. The Darth Maul, and the Mini Maul. You can see in the corner is another saber hilt. This one is my personal custom built saber. (And apparently a number of spider webs, I’ll have to clean those.)

On the wall dividing the Kitchen and the Living room I have a few Blasters mounted. The Top one is a Naboo blaster from EPI, the left is Han Solo’s Blaster, and the right is my Custom built Scout Blaster. The cane you can see is my custom built Emperor’s cane. And all of this is around the poster for Revelations. (Signed by Dawn, still waiting to get Shane’s sig.)

Off to the left of that wall is the book case. Nothing too remarkable about the books, but up on top there is even more stuff! Visable things include, The Enterprise D, Anakins Pod, a bottle of Romulan Ale (from Las Vegas) My Borg Cube Dice, a Bottle of Bawls in a TSN hugger, and of course, my cute and cuddly thing that should not be: Cuthulu. (Wearing my Cyclops Sunglasses)

Now it’s time to enter the living room. (Cue the dramatic music) Lets work our way around from left to right. Just in front of the Book Case is the Life sized Storm trooper stand up. You will notice that he is wearing my Boonie Hat and has my Ghetto Garrison Finger on his shoulder. Hanging above him is a TIE fighter of course.

This is the big Picture. There’s a lot going on here so I attached 4 different pictures together. Moving from left to right we have: a Celebration III Vader figure, a Special Silver clone trooper, my Boba Fett Unleashed, a Standard Stormtrooper, The Celebration III Epic Print, my Grandfathers rock, Sebastion (the cat gargoyle), my Spiderman Bust in front of a spider man print, A few candles, a standard Biker Scout figure, the Han Solo Unleashed, and to finish off the mantle, a Speeder bike, Com unit (remote control for a speeder bike) and incense. The other figures on the wall are another silver clone trooper, a Silver Sand Trooper and a Silver Darth Vader. All around my Ceramic Phantom of the Opera Mask. Down sitting on the drum would be my Furby style Yoda. (shhhh he’s sleeping). Finally, above the TV we have the Millennium Falcon, My Gentle Giant Biker Bust, the Remote controlled Speeder Bike with biker, a Clone Wars Clone trooper, The Birthday Present Biker Scout Statue, and then R2 down on the side. Behind the TV you see a Print of an Empire Strikes Back montage, This is one of 3 prints that I have Signed and Numbered by the artist James Cukr.

In the corner opposite from the TV we have an Episode I teaser poster with the X-wing hanging above it, then there is the Boba Fett Standup. A few non-star wars things over here include my Team User-friendly flag, and my Hard Rock Café lanyard. I have been collecting pins from the different Hard Rock Café’s that I visit. The cool thing about this corner is the light that I placed here. I set a lamp here to cast indirect light into the room, so it’s pointed right at the Poster. When it’s on, the poster makes it look like the lamp is casting the Vader shadow. It’s eerie.

Moving along the wall we have the second Cukr print “the Arrival of the Bounty Hunters” This is by far my most favorite of the three. There are two shelves here that just have an assortment of random stuff, I’ll let you figure out what’s there.

Almost done! Just above the DVD rack would be the third Cukr print “Sith Lords” This one came out right after Episode I so it only shows the three. Here we also have the Ralph McQuarrie portfolio for Empire Strikes Back (Given to me by Doc) Darth Vader’s TIE hangs overhead, and the Boba Fett head hanging here is actually a Cloud City Mini Playset. Sitting on top of the DVD rack would be Pictures of my Son and the Sword Case from Osan AB Korea.

I have an Open area Bar like place that looks into the Kitchen, above that I have placed all of my celebrity signed photos. I call it my Wall of Fame. All of the Sig’s I got myself, I hate the people that sell signitures on E-bay, it’s so Im-personal. Here we have, John Delancy (Q), Kate Mulgrew (Capt. Janeway), Tyler Mane (Sabertooth), Ethan Phillips (Neelix), Virgil (Pro Wrestler), Michonne Bourriague (Aura Sing), Adam Baldwin (Jayne), Jewel Staite (Kaylee), Nathan Fillion (Malcom Reynolds), and Brian Thompson (Lots of Stuff).

Finally, the last stop on the trip is just inside the door to my bedroom (but clearly visible from the front room.) This is a Pepsi Machine Medallion. It’s never been used in a machine. I am not going to Say where I got it. This is probably one of the most unique items in the Collection.

So there you have it. The tour of Steve’s Collectable living room. It’s crazy isn’t it! As soon as I get a house (or bigger apartment) I am going to have just one side room with all of this in it. Most likely the computer room. In the new place it will be a quest to create a normal looking Living room. Until then, I just don’t have the storage space to take all of this down. Feel free to leave comments on what you think, Or just shy away in terror. Whichever!

Ok, sorry about yesterday, I really wasn’t feeling well and my head was somewhere in La La Land. I think it’s along the lines of a simple head cold. I am a little congested, I have a small cough, and my nose is running the Marine Corp Marathon. Thankfully, no fever, and while I am a little tired, I am not as wiped as I was last time. Today I made it all the way to 11:30 before taking something. Well, anyways, lets move on to what happened this last weekend.

It was a very long drive down to Norfolk. We took 7100 to 123 to 95 to 295 to 64 (for those of you in the area you know the route) for some reason, all along 95 and 64 there was TONS of traffic! What was annoying about this is that there was no reason for it. I couldn’t see any Crashes, no pull overs, no stranded vehicles. So explain to me why everyone felt the need to all drive at 25 MPH the whole way? Even through the tunnel between Newport News and Norfolk, it was slow. The other side of the tunnel? Free and clear. /sigh

The nice break that we had was in Occoquan. It’s on the way down south so we decided to take a bit of a break there. It’s a very quaint little Riverside town. It was Very typical for an “Old Towne.” There were certainly more country shops then you could count, but the scenery was nice and it broke up the trip nicely. Occoquan isn’t actually very far from where I live now. I wonder how much a place down there would run me.

While visiting with the Doc meister, we got to visit the beach that is right across from his house. I took a look at the picture I posted last week and I guess you really can’t make out the words after it go resized. That really is an overhead of his house though. The beach was absolutely beautiful. The weather was warm but breezy. We took off the shoes and just took a long walk up and down the beach for a while. It was most relaxing, and I know that Amy and I both needed that.

Once we got back (r was it before, I forget) I got to see my Birthday present! Doc went all out, he got me the Kotobukiya Scout Trooper Statue! It’s amazing! The detail on it is phenomenal. I will defiantly see if I can get some pictures of it posted. I am sure that the one to the side here just doesn’t do it justice. I have placed it in a station of honor on the TV. It is next to my remote controlled biker scout and my Gentle Giant Biker Scout bust. Pictures will come soon, I have been meaning to take pictures of the Living room. But that’s a post for another time.

For dinner, Doc and Diz whipped up a down home country style supper with all the fixins! We had fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob! Needless to say, Amy felt right at home. After dinner, we retired to the deck where Doc assured us that the fireworks, which were being launched from the nearby Harbor fest, could be seen. We waited and I think we might have seen a subtle change of light in the sky behind all the trees, but no fireworks. This was when we thought another walk on the beach, this time, by moonlight, would be in order. There were a few people lighting off fireworks over the water so it was not a total loss. All of that and Amy got a romantic moonlight beach walk.

By now we were starting to get pretty tired. Especially since most of us were up till 2am the night before. (late night gaming on Friday night.) Doc had rented the movie “The Life Aquatic” so we sat down to wide up the night watching a movie. I am not really sure what to say as far as a review of this movie. The Life Aquatic is about a “Jacque Cousteau” type character that is past his prime. The movie is very Dry and very Blunt. It was good from an artistic point of view. It just, I don’t know. It’s so hard to explain. It was funny, it had moments that were very astonishing. But…… I guess you will just have to judge it for yourself.

On Sunday we had a lazy morning and then headed off to the Norfolk Harbor fest. There were a gaggle of boats and ships to see, but the main one that took our notice was the Kalmar Nyckel. It’s a ship that sails out of Delaware and is a recreation of the Original.

The original Kalmar Nyckel sailed from Sweden to the New World in 1638 leaving its passengers to establish the first permanent European settlement in the Delaware Valley, the Colony of New Sweden in present-day Wilmington, Delaware.

We got to tour the ship and see what some of the crew deal with. It was very interesting. I put a few pictures from the trip in the gallery.

Shortly after the Harbor fest, we decided to start the trek back home. Thankfully there was not near as much traffic on the way home. One of the games that Amy and I play while on road trips is Punch Bug. I am sure you have heard of it. If you see a Volkswagen Bug, you call it, and the color, and you get a punch on the other person. Our rules are:

• Classic Bugs are Double Punches
• Convertible Bugs are Double Punches
• Convertible Bugs with the Top down are Triple Punches.

So you can imagine if you saw a classic convertible with its top down, that’s a four punch bug! Well, a while back we weren’t seeing enough bugs to make this game all that interesting anymore. So out of the blue Amy reaches over and slaps me saying “Mustang Blue.” This spawned a whole new sub game. The rules are as follows:

• Any Mustang is a slap
• Convertibles are Doubles
• Top Down’s are Triples

This made for a very fun drive, both there and back. With traffic moving so slow on the way down, I had enough time to actually pay attention to the other side of the road and see all of the Bugs as they were coming. I was getting so many that Amy would actually get very excited when she saw one and hit a little harder each time. It’s all in good fun and no one really gets hurt, but by the time we were done with the trip, both of out legs were red from the slaps and she had an impressive bruise on her arm. (Don’t freak out too much, she bruises if you barely touch her arm). It was defiantly a fun time though.

I think I am going to wrap this one up here and continue some more tomorrow. See ya then!

You know, it’s actually pretty hard to find a good image for “My Head is swimming.” See, all of the images (ok well, most) that are in the blog are from Google Image Searches. I put in the thing I am writing about and then re-host it from my site. So if the topic is, say, my fever from the other day, I would do a Google image search for the word “Fever” and see what came up. But there aren’t really any good images for the term “my head is swimming” So I think I opted for something surreal. Meaning behind it being that, I am not feeling on top of my game today. I didn’t sleep well because of a scratchy throat. This morning I wasn’t feeling too great so I took some of the ever famous DayQuil. You can now imagine why my head is all whirly twirly. Thankfully, there are no weird animated children’s drawings in my head.

Wow, I have been working on this all day, and I just noticed that I only have 1 paragraph! Ok, Given that I have just taken my Second dose of DayQuil and I know that I am going to be Loopy again in about 10 min, I am going to officially say that the Weekend trip report will be done tomorrow. Highlights of which will be: Long trip down to Docs, Stopped at Old Towne Occoquan, Enjoyed the Beach, Doc’s Birthday Present to me, The Life Aquatic, Norfolk Harbor fest, and Punch Bug/Slap Mustang (You will have to wait till tomorrow to understand).

Yes, it’s time for yet another road trip! It seems like I am spending most of my weekends going somewhere other than here. Well, except for last weekend of course. This coming weekend we will be off to VA beach to visit with Doc and Diz. (I would link to their site but, oh, they don’t have one!) They live right on the beach so it will be nice with the weather getting so freaking Hot. Since they have stuff going on till around 2-3pm on Saturday, I figured we would just take a nice leisurely drive down to VA beach and maybe see some of the sights. *GASP* What’s this? Steve is leaving the house and venturing out into the Big Blue Room with poor Temperature control? Yup! It’s time to unplug and see the world! I have even been contemplating the Idea of going camping. You know, the whole tent, sleeping bag, fire, etc..

Last night I actually did something nice for Amy. One of her absolute favorite movies is one called Down to You. It stars Freddy Prince Jr. and Julia Stiles. Well, in a scene of the movie (actually the very end scene) Julia’s character, Imogen, comes home from work and opens the door to find a candle lit on a table. Next to the candle is a note that says “Go to the next candle”. Sure enough, there is another candle on a table a little father into the apartment. On the note with the second candle it says “Why are you walking around in the dark, turn on the light.” And of course when she turns on the light, there is Freddy’s character, Al. He starts mouthing the words to Barry Whites “Can’t get enough of your love.”

Well, I was originally supposed to go to the Nationals game with Paul, but he forgot about a date he had made a while ago, so we canceled the game. Amy, however, didn’t know that. She thought I wasn’t going to be home until around 11pm. So I went about my plan as soon as I got home. I had the notes almost identical to the movie versions. Knowing that I could not repeat the magic of the movies in my apartment (in the movie she turns on the light and the apartment is lit entirely with candles, who knew you can light candles by a switch!) I had the last note amended to read “open the door and turn on the light” and set the candle near the bedroom door. By the time she was off of her class, 9:45, I was in my suit and had my handy Screwdriver prop Mic handy. The song was cued, the candles were lit and I was in position.

When she walked in, I couldn’t see her face. (I was behind the close door) But as soon as she turned on the light and heard the song, I could swear she was about to cry. I played the roll almost exactly. We danced, and hugged, and she still looked like she was going to cry. It felt good to do something nice for her. And the really nice thing is that it took nothing to do it. I owned the song, I had the candles, and the notes were just some paper. So for the cost of a Match to light the candles, I put a smile on her face that will last her a lifetime.

Will be posting Monday with the trip report.

Is it even safe to say you have writers block if you’re not “officially” a writer? I mean, I write for a blog, it’s not like a book, or a media outlet really, but, in a way it is. I am posting out my thoughts and feelings on Life, the Universe, well, everything really. (Ok so that was cheesy) and there are people out in the world that read what I post. Some of those people know me, some don’t. So why wouldn’t that label me as a writer? So now that we have confirmed my officially being a writer, I think it’s safe to say that I officially have writers block. Seriously, I haven’t been able to think of anything to write about.

This last weekend was very plain. I gamed a lot, and Amy worked on her homework. Heck, we didn’t even do that much laundry. I did spend a little time working on some really great sounding drops for Awakened Radio. But Of course, since there is no real structure or communication, they won’t be used. (sigh.) Overall it was a very relaxing weekend, but to be honest, nothing really ground breaking happened.

Thus, is my dilemma. What do I write about when there is nothing to write about? Wow, I am starting to have a de’ja’vu. It almost feels like I have written about this subject before.

The first part of the week was basically the same as the weekend. Come home, Play around on the PC, Eat dinner and watch some TV, Play some more, go to sleep. The good news about this is that I am starting to see the benefit to not going out and spending money. I might actually have some spare funds. Of course, that’s all going into savings so that I will have money for when Andrew gets here. That’s coming soon, by the way. Come August time, my Son will be making the move to live with his dear old demented dad. It will be good for him and for me.

So, about the only exciting thing to come from this week is the new Patch for WoW, and me canceling my MXO account. The new patch includes the first of many battlegrounds. This is basically an instance that you go into to do PVP. The one that I got the chance to try was the Capture the Flag battleground. It was a lot of fun, and I got some great Honor Kills from it. Once I get a little higher in Level I will be able to try the other one.

And finally, yes, the Matrix Online account has been canceled. Good Riddance. It was probably the worst MMORPG I have ever played. The engine was terrible, and game play was a royal pain. I have ranted about it enough so I won’t go into more about the game. The Canceling of the account was just as Nightmarish though. I finally had to send in a Tech Support petition:

————————–Begin Transmission————————————
Customer (Steve Petrucelli) – 06/06/2005 09:59 AM
I have tried Multiple times to Call and cancel my account.

When I get the Option to Press 4 to Cancel, I get transferred to a Busy signal.

I do not have all day to sit and call back just to cancel my Account. Please cancel the account as of today June 6th 2004. You were able to activate the account in a matter of seconds over the web. It should be just as easy to cancel the account.

—————————–Response 1———————————-
Response (Doug) – 06/06/2005 11:19 AM
Hello Steve,

Thank you for contacting Technical Support! We have received your request and forwarded your petition to the appropriate department. You can expect to hear back from them shortly. If you have not received a reply within 48 hours please update this petition.

—————————–Response 2———————————-
Response (mxo.nun) – 06/06/2005 03:24 PM
Steve
We can cancel your account. However, we’d like to ask why you’re canceling so we can better improve the product for future users.
Thanks,
mxo.nun

—————————–Response to Response2———————————-
Customer (Steve Petrucelli) 06/06/2005 06:53 PM
The game did not live up to the hype, the game engine itself was clunky and too difficult to use, the combat system was boring and over-rated. The mission system was far too repetitive and thusly, boring. The idea of running along and getting “Sucked” into a locked combat over and over and over made getting anywhere a chore. The “Live” events proved to be a waste of time as I had never seen any of the events or the results because of the locations or the servers going down ever 30 min for “Maintenance”. Overall I think you might have had a good game with the storyline, but the actually game mechanics completely sucked.

—————————–Response 3———————————-
Response (mxo.nun) 06/07/2005 09:50 AM
Steve
We have set your account to pending cancelled. This means that you can still play the game, but at the end of your current subscription period, your account will become cancelled instead of renewing automatically. If you desire to reactivate the account in the future, please use the activate link in the master account status page. Thank you for your feedback. I would like to note that if you turn on Evade Combat and refresh it after it goes down, you’ll have a lot less problem with getting pulled randomly into interlock by the gangs. That used to annoy me too, until someone pointed out that I could avoid it with this ability.
mxo.nun

—————————–Response to Response3———————————-
Customer (Steve Petrucelli) 06/07/2005 10:12 AM
I appreciate the help, but I used the Evade combat multiple times. It’s when you just get out of combat with one guy and another pulls you in. when your jumped by 3-4 MOB’s and each one gets “their turn” as sucking you into combat, it gets old. Any other game I can just run away. Here I had to evade combat, and then when that fails, I have to exit combat, and then get sucked into another, then another, then dead. Doing that about 10 times per session isn’t fun. If you want a suggestion, make it so that when you Retreat from combat you can’t get sucked into any other combat for about 5-10 seconds. Would make retreating a little better and would stop the “Yo-Yo” effect of getting sucked into multiple combats.

—————————–Response 4———————————-
Response (mxo.nun) 06/07/2005 10:25 AM
Steve
Thanks for the suggestion. The developers are actually already working on changes to the interlock system like this, in order to make this issue you’ve described less frustrating. (You may have seen some of the threads on the boards where people are discussing the pros and cons of the proposed changes.
mxo.nun

——————————-End Transmission—————————-

So all of that, just to get an account canceled. Every other MMORPG has a “Cancel Account” button on their website.

Anyway, I am going to make it a point to post something on Friday. Look for more then

So I completely feel like I have lost days of my life. So here is what happened. I went to Shipley’s Birthday party on Saturday, like everything was normal. We had a great time at the party, watched a lot of the funnier videos like IMPS and such. We drank, a lot. But ironically enough I stopped drinking and even started sobering up towards the end of the night (Lots of water). One of our troopers brought some Balloons and we had a blast. Overall, great time. That is, until Sunday morning. So I wake up at around 10am Sunday, still at Marcs place. I am feeling ok at this point, just a little bit of a sore throat. We decide to go to Hard Time Café for Lunch (breakfast?)

Around this time I am starting to feel a little sluggish and I start getting really really cold. I am wearing a fleece and am still cold. When we left I was starving for food and by the time we got there and I started eating, I had pretty much lost the will to eat and, for that matter, to move as well. I tell Amy that I want to head home and she drives. Keep in mind that Marc’s place is in Fredericksburg, so it’s about an hour or so to get home. The whole trip I am fading in and out of sleep. By the time we get home, I can barely walk. Amy makes me a bath and I crawl into bed shortly afterwards. At this point My Fever is 102.5. I am grasping for every blanket under the roof because I am still freezing.

Amy calls up Lee to get some advice and he says that I shouldn’t be under that many covers with a High fever. As much as she didn’t want to do it (mostly because I was begging for covers) she took them away to help get my fever down. By about 7pm Sunday night, I was so sick and sore all over that I decided to make the trek to the emergency room. Side note here, I hate going to the Doctor, I mean, I really hate going to the Doctor, and emergency rooms are that much worse because they are rushed doctors. So know that, if I make the decision to go to a doctor, willingly, I must be feeling bad. So when we go to the hospital, I was already having trepidations about going, then the nurse said it would be about a 2-3 hour wait. At about this time my fever was down to about 101, but my back was killing me. There was no way I was going to sit in a waiting room chair for 3 hours. So I made a deal with Amy, if I wasn’t feeling better by Monday, then we would come back.

Monday was spent in a drugged stupor. The plus side is that my fever was dropping. By the end of Monday I was actually up and moving a little. I thought I might actually be able to go to work on Tuesday. Yeah, so, I was wrong. Oh, I went in alright, and sat at my desk in a daze. I made it through a few hours and then just gave up. I believe my fever at this point was around 99-100. I think this is when I started my NyQuil binge as well. I took a dose of NyQuil at around 4pm-ish and was starting to get woozy by 6, but not asleep. You see, I was having a hard time sleeping this whole time. By 7pm I really was getting pissed that I wasn’t sleeping yet. So by around 8:30pm I took my second dose. Flash Forward, I now realize that the time period between Doses was 6 hours, not 4 hours. Meanwhile back in un-happy land, the visions were out of this world. This would have to be one of the weirdest trips I had ever been on. (not saying I have really been on that many.)

Try to imagine this, when your eyes are open, everything is perfectly clear, your thought pattern is clear, you are thinking in coherent clarity. When you close your eyes, the world of modern art becomes your reality, colors smear together, objects morph into other objects. The oddest ones were the child cartoons. You have seen on TV where they take a child-like drawing, stick figure and such, and then animate it. It was like that only much more horrific. There was a point where Amy was sitting with me and stroking my hair and I had images of this cartoon stick figure pulling his hair out at the roots with blood going all over. Needless to say I swatted her hand away. The other weird thing about it all is that, although I had clear thoughts when my eyes were open, I couldn’t form clear sentences, or walk straight for that matter. I could think of what I wanted to say, but couldn’t really say it. Out of all of this, I still couldn’t sleep. (Could you sleep with all of that going on in YOUR head?)

Wednesday I just took the day off work. I took DayQuil through out the day, and felt much better. I was able to get up and do things in the house, but still couldn’t stomach looking at the computer, so that stayed off. By the time Thursday came around, I was feeling much better and felt that I had survived. And now it’s Friday! After much discussion and deliberation, we have decided to not go anywhere this weekend! Every weekend for a while now has involved going somewhere and doing something. This weekend is going to be a relaxing one. I am going to catch up on some gaming, maybe make some new sounders for the RFZ Newborn “Awakened Radio.” More on that subject later. I will, of course, do my best to fill you in on Monday.

There I said it.

Yes, it was very good, and it was by far better than the first two of the prequels, but….. It still wasn’t the best one. I figured that it’s been over a week since the movie came out, now would be a good time to write a review. WARNING!!! This review will probably have spoilers in it, so if you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want to spoil it then Get your butt out of that computer chair and go see it. Then come back and read this. If you have seen it and want to compare notes, then read on.

First I have to say that, reading the book before seeing the movie help in so many ways. There were entire plotlines that were not even mentioned in the movie. The whole Rebelling Senators story, and Anakin’s search for Knowledge and Master hood were only touched on. I really felt that these things were vital to the story and they were just dropped. I really thought that Haden Christiansen did well as Anakin this round, defiantly better than the EPII Anakin. And where Anakin’s character got better, I really feel that the Character of Padme got worse. Natalie Portman is a great actress, but, I guess the dialogue and direction just weren’t there for her this time around. Padme didn’t seem like the “Take Charge” Strong woman anymore, instead it was too overly caring and mushy. And the Scenes with both of these two together? In a word, Painful. I am very Thankful to Uncle George for giving us the Star Wars Universe, but the man can’t write/direct love scenes.

This movie was probably one of the Darkest of them all. I mean, I know it’s supposed to be dark, with the whole turning to the Dark Side bit, but really, it was very dark. There are some scenes that you just didn’t expect to see in a Star Wars Movie. It truly shows that Darth Vader is pure dag nasty evil! He very ruthlessly kills unarmed civilians, tears through the Jedi Temple like a mad man, He kills the Younglings (the kids from Episode II) and he chokes his pregnant wife. Sounds like a bad episode of C.O.P.S. It was great to see how Anakin gets confused by Palpatine and turned into Vader though. It really brought the story full circle. Now I need to go back and watch the Original Trilogy and see how it affects the story.

The effects in the movie were amazing, as per normal with anything Lucas does. I actually found myself getting a little motion sick during the first scene with the ships zipping around in space. The main complaint I have about all of the CGI (which was much better this round than EPII) is the Troopers. I guess it’s ok when the troopers are helmeted and moving around like normal, although I know there is no way someone in armor can move like they did. But, when I see a trooper with his helmet off and the body doesn’t match up with the head……. It makes little stevie cry. Why couldn’t he just make the armor like he did with the original? It’s not that hard, and I personally know a number of people he can contract out to to make it! The scenes where Obi Wan and the clone troopers are discussing plans, and the Troopers helmets are off just look goofy. You see a clone walk from one area to another and the head doesn’t match.

General Grievous. What’s to say about him? He was very evil, in a Snidely Whiplash sort of way. It was a cyborg, but yet he had a bad cough. No doubt he was a bad A$$ but, there wasn’t all that much of a fight with him. Obi Wan took him out very quickly so that the movie could move on. Much more detail went into Grievous in the book. I know that they can’t make the whole book into the movie, but they really left far too much out. And the Grievous I saw in the book, well he was 100 times the tyrant than he was in the movie.

Now, don’t get me wrong about the movie. I liked it. I liked it a lot. It completed the story that was started in 1977 and I am thankful for that. But I really wouldn’t rate it as the best Star Wars Movie.

So, that had to be the largest movie review I have done on this site to date. Well I guess since it’s a genre that is so ingrained in my life, it’s warranted.
Well then, on with life. This weekend is a party down at Patton’s house, its Shipley’s birthday and it’s time to get Jiggy with it. I could use a good party. The past few weeks have been pretty busy. Of course I will be back, most likely on Tuesday, to give the weekend report. It will be nice to have the 3 day weekend. Maybe I should have taken today off?

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