Work, CRT, Sleep, Work
After I got off work yesterday, I was totally unproductive. I didn't do a chore. I didn't even stop and get gas on the way home. As soon as I got home, I started playing Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando.

This picture I found to illustrate it is just plain stupid. First, Ratchet hasn't bought any armor yet. Second, he's fighting a bug the size of a house with a shotgun. When I was weak, and didn't have armor covering all my raccoon/squirrel/cat body and blocking 90% of all damage, I would use a rocket launcher or, as it turned out, my improved sniper rifle to take those things down. Now, heck, I've got the Ultra Mega Mini-Nuke. But, frankly, last time I was killing them I was trying to level up my Mega Sneaker Bomb. Two shots (six guided bombs) will take out one of those things easy.

But I don't really kill those anymore. I'm on my third way through. I'm doing skill points. Yesterday, I did a level using only weapons from the first game, killed a boss only by punching, killed everyone one a level using only my wrench, killed 12 ducks, and some other difficult stuff. Skill points unlock things, like the making of video. But I needed to unlock the tuxedo, as Ratchet is covered head to toe in metal plates with his super armor on, and to quote my nephew Brad, "I missed Ratchet's face."

Then I watched TV. First, Alison and I watched 2 Family Guy episodes (the one where Peter joins a gun club because he feels his penis is too small and the one where Peter dies on the golf course and gets Peter Frampton to sing to his wife). Then we watched last week's America's Next Top Model. They kept the ugly bitchy girl since she makes good controversy. Then we watched American Idol, where everyone sucked. Then I watched some car shows. One was in the vein of the Monster Garage/House/Gerbil series types. Get people together to do something, have them bitch at each other and almost run out of time.

I don't remember the name of the show, but it could have been called Rice Rocket Makeover. A dude let these losers get ahold of his 2004 RX8. There were three people upgrading it. Dude 1 was putting in a better stereo and putting air dams on the front and back, and was totally against messing with the form by putting stickers on it. Dude 2 was doing the engine. He was just going to do a catback, change the intake, and tweak some settings. Dude 3 was the producer dude. He was doing the suspension. Oh, that and he pressured the engine guy into putting NOx on the car. With the NOx bottle, the subwoofer wouldn't fit, so Dude 1's first project is screwed up. Also, Dude 1's air dams didn't come in in time so the Producer Dude put some cheap graphic that would be lame even on a 1992 Eclipse on the side of this brand new RX8. I stopped watching before the end.

I did a little searching too. We're trying to get a lot of stuff that Alison will like on the Replay since she's having surgery on Friday. It's just some exploratory laproscopy. They think that that ovary, the one which has had two cysts the size of a coffee cup (different shape, slightly), has attached itself to some of her other guts. I was suspecting another cyst or something since she's been having pain there for a while. She's also going on a seasonal pill. Meaning that she'll only have a menstrual cycle every three months. This is good since hers are painful and last about two weeks. So half the time she had to deal with that.

I don't have any vacation to take to go with her. In fact, I'll probably have to do some leave without pay just to get our daughter. So, Friday morning, I'm taking Alison to her mom's house. Her mom's right eye isn't' working correctly right now, so she wants to keep the driving to a minimum. She'll drive Alison to her surgery and then back to her house. I'll pick Alison up at her mom's house and take her home. Alison doesn't have much leave either, but I think she's planning on being back to work by Tuesday.

Meanwhile, I think I've settled on the Canon A300 as far as digital camera go. It uses Compact Flash cards (512 megs for $100) rather than SD cards (512 megs for $160). And it uses AA batteries, and getting two sets of NiCad batteries and a charger would be $20. The A300 goes for just a little over $150 and is a 3.2 megapixel camera. No zoom, but small. A300 at Amazon, info at DPReview, review at Imaging Resource, review at Steve's, random sample images from PBase, prices at Dealtime, review at Digital Camera Basics (at the vet, we used to put the sprinkler out to get rid of the discoloration that dog pee would cause the lawn), and a search of rec.photo.digital for the A300.

I figure Camera (170) + CF 512 Card ($110) + rechargables ($20) = $300, and we will be able to take over 1000 pictures in China with that without offloading it. However, I'll also be in HK for two days at the beginning. And if I can get over the jetlag quick enough, I'll hit the consumer electronics markets. Wooo!
- posted by Nick Postagulous @ 8:11 AM