I am sorry that I don’t post as often as Kip does, but I just don’t have that much exciting going on to write a blog post about.  So now I am going to tell you all about all the things Kippy and I did over the Holiday Season.

The Christmas season began with us visiting Kip’s family on Christmas Eve Eve.  This was our year to spend Christmas with my family, so we spent the eve before Christmas Eve with Kip’s family.  Well, his family always gets together with Kaylor Family Christmas get together.  Apparently, the average number in attendance is between 65 and 75 people.  I come from a large family, but that is only my immediate family, I don’t have a large extended family, so I was slightly overwhelmed by the number of people that were in attendance with only about 50 people there.  After dinner that night the family got together to participate in the traditional game of Dirty Santa game for those people that bring gifts to trade around.  This being my first time attending this party, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this version of the gift exchange.  Apparently this was the first year that they allowed young children the participate as well, and let’s just say, I don’t think they will be playing next year.  These kids I would guess were no more than seven or eight years old, and I don’t think that they were quite prepared for exactly how dirty the game could get with high school students and adults fighting to get the presents that they wanted.  The game took about an hour and a half at least.  The hot gift this year was Best Buy Gift Cards.  I ended up getting a Day Spa set that my mother-in-law brought to the exchange.  Kip was super wonderful and got me the cute snowflake blanket that I wanted.  After the party, we came back to Kip’s parents’ house to celebrate Christmas with his family.  Scott and Jake got me a really cute pair of shoes that I just loved, but they were one size two small.  Kippy got his DS as I’m sure you all already know.  I got my DS from Kippy during our Christmas that we celebrated together.

Christmas Eve was spent driving from Kip’s parents’ house to my parents’ house.  That night we played a small version of White Elephant where my mom re-gifted a bunch of things she needed to quit storing under her bed.  It was funny to play with my whole family.  There were like four or five different candles.  Sunday was Christmas, and we opened our stockings first thing in the morning, followed by a special Christmas church service.  After a huge lunch of ham and cranberry sauce and tons of pie.  After lunch we opened our presents and played for the rest of the day.  Monday was pretty uneventful, but Tuesday night we went to Dixie Stampede at Myrtle Beach to see the Christmas show.  Kippy had never gone to the Dixie Stampede so he got to have his first experience with the yummy yummy food and the pretty pretty horses.  We were on the South Pole side of the theater right up close to the stage on the front row so we could see everything.  It was totally awesome and hilarious.  One of the characters was a red-neck reindeer hunter.  He was really funny.

Now it is New Year’s Day, and we are hanging at Kip’s parents’ house.  Kip has tomorrow off, and we will be un-decorating from Christmas and returning out little apartment back to normal.  I hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and now we don’t have to hear any more about the Merry Christmas Happy Holiday’s controversy.  I always said Merry Christmas anyway.

I never really care much when the Earth once again passes through an arbitrarily chosen point in space relative to the sun.  And the ensuing celebration of our ability to count backwards from ten immediately before counting one number higher has never really done much for me.  So it should come as no surprise to the reader that I do not care to resolve things simply because I have to buy a new calendar.  There’s nothing wrong with you if you do make such resolutions.  It just means that I’m better than you.  That’s a sarcastic joke.  I’m not sure if everyone will pick up on that without asterisks. ***.

Now, one thing that I do tend to do at this time of year is reflect on events that are related to one another only because the most significant digits in their date happen to be the same number.

March 3:  Developed a method to overcome static electricity.  Although that method seemed like too much work and I have started using Jake’s method:  bang metal stuff with your knuckles or elbow, since you don’t have very many nerve endings there to feel the shock.
April 2:  I got married.  2005 will most likely be the only year I’ll be able to say that.  So I’d say that’s pretty important.
April 3-10:  Honeymoon in Hawai’i.  The most amazing place I’ve ever been.  I’m jealous of the Lostaways, who get paid a ton of money to live and work there.  I probably won’t be back for a very very long time, if ever.
May 28:  Almost got in a fight at Carowinds.  Fortunately, we survived.
July 27:  Made a difference ...by using large cutting tools.
August 6:  We got a puppy!  It was Stephanie’s first pet ever (fish don’t count), and my first pet that was actually mine and not my parents.
September 2:  Revealed my volleyball skills.  Turns out, I’m not too good.
September 12:  We lost August.  That was definitely a growing experience.  I didn’t realize just how attached to that little puppy I had become. :(
October 4:  We got a new dog.  Punky will never replace August, but we love her just the same.
November 14:  Brought free speech to the internet.  By giving you the ability to comment on my blog posts, I empowered you in a way never before possible.  Al Gore probably never thought the internet would turn into a medium for open communication and sharing of ideas back when he invented it.
December 16:  Sustained a leg wound in The War On Christmas.  Okay I made that one up.
December 24:  Found out that I am going to be an uncle soon.  Stephanie’s older sister Emily is expecting!  If age were measured in generations rather than years, I guess this would signify that I’m about to turn one, and Steph’s parents are about to turn two.

PS: If year is a nonprimitive type with overloaded operators, ++year is more efficient than year++.  That’s also true for primitives if you’re using a terrible compiler.  :)

I put up a set of Christmas photos.

I saw Sin City over the weekend, and I know the movie came out over nine months ago, but I’m going to review it anyway.  And you’re going to sit there and read it, because you’re the one with nothing better to do but read someone’s blog that you just have on your buddy list because you talked to him once like seven years ago to ask for help on a math problem or something.  Don’t you have some kind of job or homework to work on now?

Getting back on topic: This movie was hilarious!  I think the funniest part was the way Frodo was killed.  That was ridiculously funny!  I was laughing for like five minutes after that.  And then the immortal Bruce Willis, who got shot like fifty times without dying.  What was up with that?  Oh and when he (literally) punched the yellow guy’s face in, that was really funny too.  And when the lesbian parole officer looks at her (missing) hand and is like “HE MADE ME WATCH!!!!!”... I found that funny.

So anyway, I kinda liked this movie in an I-don’t-really-need-to-see-it-ever-again kind of way.  I liked the really artistic approach to the film, it really did feel like I was watching a comic book.  If you’re not going to be grossed out/offended by violence that competes with Mortal Kombat for the Most Over The Top award, it’s worth checking out.  The movie has also been accused of being violent toward women (at least, I heard some dude on the radio complaining about that once), but there were lots of guys castrated in this movie, and the hookers weren’t exactly defenseless victims, so I don’t really see what the big deal is.

I also liked how Rory, even when she plays a prostitute, is incapable of not being incredibly cute.  I think she wins the Cutest Hooker Ever award.

I bring forth two topics of discussion on this grim mid-January day.  First, I built a new PC last week.  Here is a picture of that process that Stephanie captured.  Notice as Punky eagerly awaits the opportunity to chew on any part I do not need.  This was my first time building a whole PC, which wasn’t very difficult.  I thought I had destroyed my processor though.  All you ever hear is how incredibly sensitive the processor is, but once you get the clasp closed down on it, it is pretty much indestructible.  I learned this while trying to mount the cooling fan on the processor... which involved applying a sizeable percentage of my full body weight to the “snap-in” mounting screws.  But other than that, and the fact that I forgot to put in the shield around the connectors on the back and had to unmount the motherboard to put it in, everything went pretty well.

Second, I am going to discuss Windows Live Local (found, cryptically enough, at local.live.com).  It’s Microsoft’s latest way to compete with Google (specifically, Google Maps).  So far, it’s got the immediate advantage of making much prettier maps.  It also has satellite data of course.  The photos around Charlotte are older than Google’s, but they also have some black and white photos that cover my hometown in a pretty high resolution (albeit without color), where Google just says “no satellite imagery available at this zoom level.”  I guess I should try to get to a point here.  I don’t normally like to side with the “I hate Microsoft because they’re successful” techno-hippies.  If you want to read blogs about that, you don’t have to look very hard.  I’m going to objectively and open-mindedly suggest to you that perhaps Microsoft sucks.  Proof of this theorem is left as an exercise for the reader.

I guess what I’m addressing specifically is Microsoft’s “throw money at the latest tech trend until we have at least ninety percent market share” strategy.  I’m really amazed at the economics of it... ya know, that it actually works.  I mean, look at what they did to Netscape seven years ago.  And that was competition for lead market share for a piece of software that they give away for free, without any kind of embedded advertising.

The inspiration for this whole blog post is this comment I read in an interview EGM had with Bill Gates (well, the interview was actually with Peter Moore, the Bill Gates thing was a sidebar):

EGM: Microsoft has lost roughly $1 billion a year on the first Xbox since it launched. Was that worth it?

Bill Gates: We knew going into the original Xbox that we would lose...a lot. Or you can say, invest a lot—that’s the nice way to say that. And we knew the only thing we’d get out of that first generation was the learning and credibility that came with that experience.

Read the whole article here.

Can you imagine if you were owner of a company and you told your shareholders “Our strategy this year is to release a product that loses a billion dollars a year, for the next five years.  Then maybe we’ll start to turn a profit.”  I mean, even if you’re Microsoft, a billion dollars is still a pretty significant sum of money.

So give me all your poison

If the subject of this post was a little too cryptic for you, it’s my pseudo-enigmatic way of saying “taxes.”  Does anyone know much about doing taxes?  I know it’s possible to do your own taxes, but... is it hard?  I mean, I got an A in three calculuses (calculi?), I should be able to handle it, right?  My parents used an accountant as far back as I remember, but my dad also owns his own business and so his taxes were a bit more complicated.  Mine should be pretty simple, I just have one income source, and the only deduction is the money I tithe to the church I guess.  Oh and I’m married, and supposedly one of the things George W. did before he started bombing the middle east was to get rid of the so-called “marriage tax.”  But I don’t know what that means or if it actually changed anything or if it was just a talking point.  I guess my biggest concern about doing it myself would be that I might do it wrong and get sent to jail for tax evasion or something when it was really just tax ignorance.  I’d also be afraid that I’m missing some refunds I could apply for or deductions I could take that would save me more money than an accountant charges.

Any comments from the audience?