Source.

Two weekends ago was a trip out east to the Commonwealth. J and I co-opped Army of Two, ODST, and New Mario, start to finish on consecutive days. Monday featured some epic Halo firefight scenarios. Of course we mixed it up with some MST, Always Sunny, and a trip to the Dulles air museum. Mandy was awesome throughout, and filled me in on some of the great new J-isms that I've missed.

Source.

Mario provides some nostalgic sidescrolling action, with a few new motion control elements that tend to be very challenging. The game resurrects the Mario 1, 3, and 4 formula but adds three more simultaneous players. Two at a time provided some helpful bootstrapping and agonizing coordination, I await and fear the day Kevin, Cheryl, and Ty come over.


I finally made it to the annual Friendsgiving event at Bret and Courtney's place in Vegas. After a lengthy drive everybody met up to hang out at the MGM. I think everyone did well after leaving the craps tables.



Dawn broke shortly after we finished our Del Taco and *bertos, and it was much like old times.




Many a ping pong ball was thrown, with the fantasy-inspired keeping of statistics and awarding of trophies.



Out back, Kaffey got along splendidly with Buddy and Chunko. The dogs spent most of the weekend flopped on the ground.




Saturday night was all business as every capable chef prepared their dish, and the chef de chefs deep fried the seasonal entree. Of course the meal was top notch.



Sleeping followed. With fantasy matchups and wiffle the next day.


Proper Thanksgiving for me was courtesy of Jessica's family. Again, an excellent meal with novel variations such as sausage stuffing and chocolate bourbon pecan pie.

I had a fun experience on the return trip. The v1 was getting two very strong signals on my tail, and I was soon passed by a chip. The clutchness of the device was demonstrated as the two signals indicated now in front and behind, encouraging me to let the second cop speed past and nab the guy following the first. I'm not sure why they had radar on, but it was a fun procedure to watch.

Today I saw my house in daylight for the first time in weeks. So I put up some Christmas lights and researched appetizers for Connie's thing.

Source.

ScottD and I went to see The Road. It was very faithful to the book, I almost pined for a few new scenes since I knew how each would play out. While McCarthy's prose does not lack visual descriptiveness, seeing his world is a great way to experience the story. I'm not sure the sense of despair comes across quite as well, but I don't know how it could have been achieved without excessive monotony.



I downloaded Dragon Age since it's Bioware and got killer reviews. I have a long way to go, but it doesn't strike me as much of an improvement on Mass Effect. Of course, anytime EA's involved...

And lastly, a message from Kafka's nose:

Kafka

n chyt6

I installed directional fixtures on the high walls in the upstairs, triggered by a motion sensor in the living room. It appears the wall switch sensors require upwards of 60 watts of load to function properly. I'd prefer to use a security sensor because of their greater range and daylight sensitivity, however they have to drive an even greater load. Hopefully somebody will solve this, given the prevalence of cfls and leds.

Jessicat and your favorite east county bro spent Halloween was at Mesa. Everyone else's costumes were not G rated. Particularly Ty's.


Forza 3 is in the xbox right now. It looks great and I'm a huge fan of the added tracks, particularly the sprint races in the Japanese mountains. Catalunya is a good one as well, though I wish someone would nuke Silverstone. I'm not one to demand trillions of cars, but the lineup seems a bit small, perhaps to promote online content sales.

It's a bit easier than the last game, though the suggested lines often leave me to wonder. It's a great installment nonetheless and solved some of the FM2 peeves such as 720p and that the prize car for each race series was really only useful in the series you just beat.



I got my new Bridgestones from Cyclegear today. It's too bad BuyMoto closed cause pulling wheels off (to take to CG) sucks. The Battleax set lasted 8000 miles, front and rear. To contrast, the Qualifiers got me 5000 for each of the two rears I've owned, 7000 for the front.

The front wasn't too bad at the centerline and factory smooth on the edges, but everything between was out of tread. The rear was toast on the very centerline, but with some meat outside of that. Farther out it was pretty warn.
A little peculiar. Oh well, three-compound tire.