It's official. I've caught a cold. I blaim Donna Andrews for keeping me up late reading two nights in a row. And Marcus. He thought he was getting sick over the weekend. I'd say he was and he was nice enough to pass it on to me. Unfortunately, I've already called to refill my allergy medicine, but I can't get shot this week because I'm sick. I'll have to go pick it up and then go next week to get shot.

Talking to my parents last night, I found out that they've put aside some of the money they got from Grpop's estate for Mike and I to use as downpayments. Maybe I can get a mortgage instead of paying rent!!!! It sure would be nice, at least. We'll just have to see what happens.

Did stay up and watch CSI:Miami last night before I went to bed. Even so, I only read a few pages before I was out like a light. Then I woke up before my alarm clock went off, and just lay in bed. Probably would have gotten back to sleep about 5 minutes after the alarm went off. O well. Maybe tonight I can get a good night's sleep again and help fight off this stupid cold thingy.

Hang on to your hats. It's the Mark weekend recap, brought to you by my weekend, obviously.

When last I'd checked in, it was Saturday early afternoon. And raining occasionally. That continued until early afternoon, when it was just partly cloudy for the rest of the weekend.

Went home and watched Babylon 5 DVD set extras, and some of my TV Land stuff, then played some games with Marcus. I beat him at Pente and Risk, which he supposedly is the all time champion of. I'm sure next time he'll get me, though. I made a mistake of mentioning what Jeff and I were doing last summer, so Marcus now claims I have to jump into the pool twice. They'd better start heating it soon!

We finished Risk about 11:30. We talked for a little while, then I started to read "just a little bit more" of Click Here for Murder. Finally stopped at 1 AM.

Sunday after church, ran a couple errends, then met Debbie and others at Baja Fresh as planned. Had a really nice afternoon, but got sunburned. Yep, enough sun was out that the hour and a half we sat outside was enough to burn my arms (which never burn) and my face. Very mild, but still not happy about it.

Then Jeff and Jen came over. We played the Stock Market Game and watched the season finale of Alias. I can't believe, with how they left that show, they expect us to wait until September to find out what happens next!

Finally got all the bank recs basically finished today. This is turning into a bigger job then it needs to be, but I'm not quite sure how to get it to go back down to what it should be. This is getting most frustrating.

Speaking of which, there aren't enough hours in the day. I stayed up way late reading again last night (half way done already). I desperately need to find out what happens next, yet I've got multiple hours of TV recorded to watch. Really don't want a huge build up. And I plan to go to bed early tonight since I've been up too late the last few nights. But we'll see if that actually happens, I guess.

I finished The Mark on the Door last night. I thought I was tired, but when I crawled into bed to read, I kept going. And then I was so close to the end that I figured I might as well stay up and finish. so this morning, when I woke up, I start on Click Here for Muder. Looks like it's going to be as good as I hoped it would be.

So, looks like we're going to get rain showers off and on all day. It was raining when I got up this morning, the the sun broke through the clouds. Darkened up and started raining about the time I went to the caf for brunch (last one of the year). And I mean pouring! My jeans are still slightly damp. Now, the it's partly sunny again. Hey, this is supposed to be May in SUNNY Southern CA. Did someone miss the location when this weather was delivered?

Forgot to complain about my rent going up yesterday. Got a notice this week that the new rental company is raising my rent. Not that much, and I wouldn't be that upset about it, except they claim that I'll still be paying $100 under market value for the place. Let's fix it up, espeically the plumbing, then we'll start talking about whether or not that's it's market value. I find it hard to believe, however, considering the neighborhood, unless other places have gone up that much. This doesn't take effect until July 1st, so we'll see when it goes up after that. Anyone know how often they can increase the rent when you're on month to month? Or is there even a law that covers that?

So, what have I been up to beside waisting work time playing around here? (Please note, I now have a blogroll. And if I set it up right, it'll even let me know when blogs have been updated if you ping weblogs.) Not a whole lot.

I as so sick of fighting credit cards to try to understand what's happening to reconcile the bank. It really shouldn't be this hard.

Finished Armageddon Tuesday like I wanted to. It was great, until the last chapter. The worst part? I can't understand why the characters were doing what they were doing!

Went over to the Moss's to just jam on Wednesday night. By the time everyone showed up and we were finally ready to get started, it was 7:10 again. Yep, basically a waste of time for me. And Mrs. Moss didn't see why having the TV on would be a problem. Hello! Trying to play and concentrate. And the couch kinda faces it.

Jeff's in town for the weekend. We're talking about a Stock Market game at some point in the next couple of days.

I have been very tired recently and I'm not completely sure why. Got ready for bed after CSI last night and had the lights out by 11. Heck, I figured I'd be through with the Hardy Boy's book I'm reading by now, but I'm only half way through.

Did get the Babylon 5 season 2 DVD set this week... on Thursday. So I'll only get to use it with the guys once this semester. Can't believe next week is it already!

Think this catches you up on my exciting week. Have a good weekend!

I've changed my template. Comments? Suggestions?

The biggest thing I'm still trying to do is change my archives so there's only one link per month. Anyone know if I can do that?

If it's Thursday, that must mean it's time for the Thursday Threesome, brought to us by Dick, Jane, and The Back Porch.

Onesome: See- What do you see when you look out your kitchen window? Just curious...
It’s a rather boring view of the houses across the street. Of course, my last two apartments didn’t even have windows in the kitchen, so I guess I shouldn’t complain.

Twosome: Spot- Okay, pet names... Come on; not everyone has a "Sparky" or a"Fluffy". If you have a pet or two, what did you name them? Hmmm... No pets? How about a 'pet name' for someone close to you?
No pet names or names for someone close to me. However, I used to pretend I had a cat named Kitten. Did I ever tell you the story about when Kitten died? :)


Threesome: Run- Hey, what's your favorite 'run over to' place? You know, the "Honey,I'll be back in a bit, I need to run over to..." That place!
Used to be Crime Time. Now, probably Borders. But I’m becoming less and less of a run to person these days.

Since Mary and Eric don't have their surveys up, I'll just have to take some other kind of surveys today.

You are a Romulan. Cunning and clever, you can out-
wit to get yourself out of tight situations.


What Major Race of Star Trek would you be?
brought to you by Quizilla

Yeah, right! Although I wonder if it has to do with the last question, which I answered at random.


So which fairy tale archetype are you? Hmm??
made by Michelle at EmptySpace.

Hm. I guess being indecisive can be a bad thing after all. :)

But with a quick vote change, I became


So which fairy tale archetype are you? Hmm??
made by Michelle at EmptySpace.

Like this one a little better.


You are Robin Hood: Men In Tights
Fegalas? No... you're strait... yeah.... You many
want to spend less time working ongetting your
seams strait.


Which Mel Brooks Movie Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Tell me, does that box look crooked to you? :)

They really weren't pulling my leg. Donna Andrews really was at the book festival yesterday. She flew in Sunday morning. Talk about dedication to fans! And she remembered who I was and apologized for not remember whether it was spelled with a K or a C. Heck, I was just impressed that she remember who I was at all. :)

BTW, I didn't tell you about one author (who will remain nameless) who asked me how to spell it, and, as she was telling me about the people she know who spelled it with a C preceded to spell it with a C. Funny, isn't it?

Now I'm feeling stressed. I didn't get through nearly as much of the stuff I recorded from last week as I wanted to Sunday. Something about going back to UCLA. And I really want to finish Armageddon in time to write the review by Thursday so it appears Saturday. So I will be trying to balance both of those with other things this week. Like laundry tonight and picking up Treasure Planet tomorrow.

We canceled Bible Study this week because of a huge open house that the Christian school is having. Naturally, we can't meet anywhere on campus as a result. But the worship team is still planning to get together Wednesday night so we can just have a chance to play together, get used to each other's styles, go over songs we don't all know. That kinda stuff.

Meanwhile, this is the last week of classes here on campus. Next week is finals and then summer starts, at least in my book. Where does the time go?

My weekend isn't going as planned at all. Don't know if that's a good thing or not.

Last night, I decided not to go to Magic Mountain after all. With the LA Time book festival today, I didn't want to be too tired, especially since Jars, the only group I was interested in, wasn't playing until 11. Then I changed my mind. And changed it back again. Over and over and over again. See, I really am that indecisive. :)

Of course, it didn't help when I started to watch What I Like About You. The plot? Trying to get someone outside the apartment and interacting with people. So I called Kurt's celphone. But by the time I got ahold of him it was even later, and the 11 PM concert was already full. They had tickets to the 12:30 AM concert, but I decided not to try to join them after all. I was majorly bummed until I realized something. A) This is the first time in a long time I've done something like this (made a decision and then been very upset by it) and B) I actually did something about it (by calling Kurt) instead of just feeling sorry for myself. See, I'm getting better. :)

Today was as fun as I'd hoped it would be, however. Met Angelique at the LA Times Book Festival. Got the couple books autographed that I wanted to get autographed and chatted with the authors I wanted to catch up with. Only bought two books, and I was planning to get both of them from Amazon.

Which brings me to how the book festival became a "problem." Both of these authors weren't there today but will be tomorrow. Taffy Cannon (aka Emily Toll) isn't that big a deal. She's a local author and I can catch her any time. However, Donna Andrews is a much bigger deal. Considering she lives in Virgina, it's a little harder to get her to autograph books. So I'll be heading back down to UCLA to get those books signed tomorrow. So much for my relaxing afternoon at home. :)

Wednesday night, I head over to the Moss's to practice. I start to take my guitar out to discover that my D string has unwound and therefore it's time to replace all of my strings. It's probably been a couple years anyway. But the evening went downhill from there.

No one had any songs picked out, so we had to start by doing that. So it was 7:10 by the time we were actually starting on music stuff. Keep in mind that I have to leave by 7:30 to pick up the convention for Enterprise. And we had a new guy trying to figure out how to use his base guitar with us. And they wouldn't turn off the TV yet again. Why is the TV on when you've got 5 people over trying to work on music stuff. I left when I was supposed to, but I was not happy.

Mr. Moss wasn't actually going to make it Thursday, so I used his guitar and lead. They seemed extrememly nervous about me not leading last night. I don't know what they're going to do when I take a trip. Say to Trixie Camp. Anyway, it seemed to go well.

Today, I have gotten nothing done. I'm just can't concentrate on anything other then my weekend plans. I'm heading to Magic Mountain as soon as I can get some dinner in me for their semi-annual Hallelujah Jubilee. Jars of Clay. Not a huge fan, but for free (with my annual pass) I figure I can catch them in concert. Meeting up with Kurt and probably his girlfriend and I'm not sure who else.

Tomorrow, I'm meeting Angelique at the LA Times Book Festival for the third year in a row. It's always a fun time.

And, today, I got my 1000th helpful vote on my reviews at Amazon. I'm quite proud. Got 1001, too, so I'm symetrical right now. :)

But right now, it's finally quitting time, so I'm officially out of here. Have a great weekend!