Well, the two guys who said they were interested in moving in came by last night. I would have sworn they said they'd be by at 7, but they showed up at 8 on the dot. Seemed nice, seemed to like what they saw, but decided they didn't want to move in. So I'm back to only having one roommate. :(

Things went well with the Durons (as I figured they would.) Ordered pizza for dinner, they watched Lilo and Stitch and parts of The Santa Clause. I was in and out of the living room trying to get other things done, like get started on packing.

I sure hope I got everything. I always have this feeling like I've forgotten something. Usually I haven't, but it lingers from the few times that I have. Either way, everything should be in my car, and I will be leaving in 30 minutes to drive to my parents for the weekend. Won't be back until Tuesday. I hate that Sunday after Thanksgiving traffic. Mike will leave to head back for his last couple weeks at Focus Institute on Saturday, so I'll be an only child for a couple days for the first time in 21 years. Should be interesting.

Meanwhile, I can't wait to see which gets the first reaction when I show up, my beard, or my hair. I've been growing a beard for a couple months now, but I haven't had a hair cut of any kind since August. Yes, I have to comb my hair for the first time in 3 and a half years. :) I'll let you know what they say.

They haven't done anything with the leak best I could tell. But I could also hardly hear it last night, and the musty smell seemed much less last night.

Before I leave, I need to go the word association game for the week:

1. Concert:: music
   
2. Sydney:: Bristow (how could I do anything else with how much I talk about Alias. :)
   
3. Shower:: clean
   
4. Patterns:: sewing
   
5. Market:: outdoor place with fresh produce
   
6. Chair:: table
   
7. London:: England
   
8. Reception:: wedding
   
9. Republican:: conservative
   
10. Cough:: hack
    

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

So, how did I follow up my stressful weekend? By not going to sleep until after 3 this morning. I was just lying in bed thinking about all the things that have to come together before I can leave tomorrow, and my mind kept racing. And the musty smell from the water is getting stronger in my bedroom all the time.

Am picking up the Duron kids after work today for a couple hours. Their parents both had an all day meeting, so they're coming over to my place for a last few hours. We'll order pizza and I'll let them watch a DVD or something educational like that. :) Meanwhile, I'll be packing since I'm trying to have everything in my car when I get into work tomorrow so I can leave directly from work.

And the two guys will be coming over to look at the condo, too! We'll see how that goes.

Meanwhile, everyone should be gone in time for me to watch 24. :) Guess I'll watch tonight's Angel rerun when I get back Monday night.

And, in other news, I did the unthinkable. I wrote 5 reviews today, bringing my total for November up to 30. Yep, I'll have a review a day for November. If I do this every year and a half or so, I guess my next time will be sometime early 2005.

So Friday, I'm in my bathroom and hear a weird noise. I think nothing of it, but it's still happening a few hours later, so I take a closer listen. Sounds to me like water running in the walls, but just a little bit. I debate about what to do, but then I call the HOA. Naturally, they're closed at 11 at night, and all the answering service wants to do is leave a message for them on Monday. I do get them to have a pumber call me, but since I can't find any water leaking out, they conclude the water must be running in the pipes.

Saturday, I get up and head out to a book signing. Got Rhys Bowen's latest, For the Love of Mike. Then I came back to town and watched Radio. Good movie. My parents were right in recommending it.

Got home, and it sounded like the problem was still going on. But again couldn't find any leaking water.

Sunday, after church, I asked Dave to stop by listen. He heard the noise, but couldn't decide anything either. By this time, I'm smelling a wet, musty smell.

Did little other then church and read on Sunday. Read all of the book. Very good, obviously. And Alias was awesome last night!

This morning, as I'm leaving for work, I spot the neighbor with the garage directly under condo leaving, so I stop him and ask if he has water leaking into his garage. He hadn't noticed anything, but sure enough, he's got a huge water spot and a puddle on the floor. So now I know where the water was going. I've spent most of the day waiting to hear anything about it back from the HOA. I'm just glad it's their problem and not mine.

Meanwhile, I got a call from a couple of guys looking for a place to live. They're going to stop by and take a look sometime this week. May be moving in as early as next week! But I'm trying not to get too excited since it seems like everytime I think someone's moving in, they back out on me at the last minute.

Meanwhile, I am officially insane. In spite of the fact that I said I wouldn't do it and I leave town Wednesday afternoon, I'm going for it. I'm going to try to average a review a day in November. Only need six more. Think I should head over there and make it five.

Been a few days since I posted about life, hasn't it?

Frankly, I haven't had much new going on. The guys didn't come over on Wednesday night because they had too much homework to get done. Put off a wonderful Babylon 5 as a result. They missed a truly horrid Enterprise, too. Which is better for them. I am sure I lost brain cells watching it. Had the entire thing figured out 15 minutes in. And it didn't surprise me once along the way. If you're ever around a TV and this episode is on, run to the other room. It'll be better that way.

Last night, instead of regular Bible study, we had our annual Thanksgiving feast. Everyone is supposed to bring a food to share that starts with the same letter as a first or last name. Instead of my regular Bread and Butter, I decided to bring Marshmellows. You never know for sure what you'll wind up with, but this year we had lots of deserts and lots of chips/salsa/nacho type things. Still, it's always fun.

To counteract my post from Tuesday about celebrities (from the word association), I have stopped watching all the news about Michael Jackson. He makes my skin crawl as it is! I really don't want to see any more news about him. If only that would make it so.

Tomorrow is the 40th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination, as I'm sure you're aware. What I was not aware is that two other famous men also died that day. Guess this supports Trixie's theory about bad luck and threes. Anyway, here's an interesting article on the subject.

And finally, I think I have a few quizzes to catch up on.

Your Trixie Crime by Trishek
Name
Favourite Trixie Character
Your Crime:	kidnapping
Caught By:	Diana
Prison Sentence:	12 years
Created with quill18's MemeGen!

Your soul is bound to the Solitary Rose: The
Alone.

"When I wake up alone, the shades are still
drawn on the cold window pane so they cast
their lines on my bed and lines on my
face."

The Solitary Rose is associated with loneliness,
melancholy, and patience. It is governed by
the goddess Merope and its sign is The Sword,
or Unrequited Love.

As a Solitary Rose, you may be summed up as a
hopeless romantic. You desire love and have so
much love to give, but thing just never seem to
work out the way you want them to. In life,
you can be very optomistic, even when things
are gray and nothing works out to your
expectations.


What Rose Is Your Soul Bound To?
brought to you by Quizilla

No surprise there.

Have a good weekend.

Good afternoon. Better late then never with today's Thursday Threesome, brought to you by friendly neighbors and The Back Porch.

Onesome: Holiday Sweets-- What is your favorite holiday sweet? You know, the one you only really can get your hands on once a year?
Pumpkin Pie! Although, since I forgot to mention it last week, I’ll also mention a dish my mom makes for the holidays every years as well. Sweet potatoes, apples, layered with raisins, cinnamon, and a tad of lemon juice. It’s a favorite for the entire family.

Twosome: Recipe-- ...and can you get the recipe for it? ...or is this one of those closely guarded family secrets handed down mother to daughter. ...and hey? What about us guys? How are we ever supposed to figure out how to do this stuff? ...or should we even try ?
I pretty much gave you the recipe already.

Threesome: Exchange-- But if you do have that recipe and you can bear to share, why not stop over at the exchange and drop it off? Barring that: do you routinely exchange sweets at holiday time? Yeah? What kinds?
I don’t, mainly because I’m lazy and never get them made.

AUGH!!! Just lost my post. What did I say?

Weird day at work, but I did get quite a bit done. Including finding that one problem account is out the same amount this month as last month. Think the problem lies in over zealous write off's last year. We're going to look at it again next week and then talk to Phil.

Meanwhile, my rank just keeps rising at Amazon. 215 today! When I first started reviewing seriously, I was going to be happy to have a four digit rank. Then I wanted top 1000. Now? I'm looking for the top 100. Will take me a while to get there, but I think I can. Especially if jumps like this keep happening.

I can get back into my yahoo mail account after a week! Don't know what the problem was, but it was nice to see the page come up.

And Unconscious Muttering's Word Association

1. Plan B:: Failure of Plan A
   
2. Seattle:: Washington
   
3. The lady wore:: Red
   
4. Upsetting:: Sad news
   
5. Tampon:: Lady
   
6. Celebrity:: Too much news (not that I stop watching)
   
7. Baja:: Fresh
   
8. 64:: 8 squared
   
9. RGB:: Red Green Blue
   
10. Milkshake::Strawberry
    

Where to start?

Saturday, I was up and about early and went to see the first showing of Brother Bear. Let's just say that Bambi now has competition as the most sad of the Disney animated movies. And, yet, somehow I enjoyed it. Not something to see when you want to laugh (although the two moose are great). A good movie, but a two sleeve, wish I'd brought Kleenex kinda thing.

Came into the office for a while and worked on listmanias at Amazon then went home and tried to play catch up on my TV viewing. TNT rerunning Angel around their basketball schedule keeps throwing me off. I got only part of the episode Thursday because they started 30 minutes late.

Sunday, went to church in the morning and had a SNYF that night. No worship team practice since we're just having our Thanksgiving feast this Thursday. Talked to my family for almost two hours. Part of it was spent talking to Mike, which was very good. I just love modern technology. I was talking to my brother in Colorado and my parents in Northern CA at the same time. For free thanks to free weekends on celphones.

Still trying to decide what I want to do over Christmas break. I may need to be back to organize and/or do other things for the condo. And I should get in touch with Seth and Kiersten to see if they'll be in town at all or not, cause I'd love to see them, show them the new place, etc.

Have a tentative lead on a new roommate in January. Will post more if it comes together. I think it will, and I'm excited, but I'm just not sure yet.

I have nothing to say today.

I thought I did, but I really can't come up with anything.

My life is rolling along like always. Basically boring, especially after all the events of earlier in the week.

Wednesday night, the guys came over and we enjoyed an exceptional night of Babylon 5. We're just about to break away from earth, and two of them don't even know it. I love it.

Enterprise was also exceptional. What looked to be a pure racial episode turned our expectations on their head half way through and turned out to be very interesting.

Last night things went well during worship, until I stopped concentrating on the last song (the one I didn't know like the back of my hand), and we started to fall about a little. But we survived.

CSI and Without a Trace were both exceptional last night. Best of the season for CSI.

While checking out USA network's official site for Monk today, I discovered they've been reruning season one. As in the season I haven't seen all of yet. At least I found out now.

And Disney has delayed their next wave of Disney's Treasures tins. Disappointed in a way, because I can't wait to see them, but also very happy because 6 months will hopefully be easier on my budget.

Helped Phil and Jason figure out why a schedule was out of balance today by reminding them to check something Jason had mentioned needed to be checked 5 minutes earlier. It really wasn't much, but they're treating me like a hero.

This is a lot for someone who had nothing to say. :)

I do have a new project I need your help on. Amazon also have "Guides" that people can write about just about anything. I got a brilliant idea this morning on my way to work. The idea I had was have famous quotes with the originator properly noted, but have part of each quote be a link to something that Amazon sells. For example:

"To be or not to be." could link to the movie of the same name. Or

"Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" could have a link to a product named "What you can do for your country." Ok, so I haven't looked, but I'm sure there's something with that name.

So, what I need are a list of famous quotes you think would work for this. I promise to post the finished results when they're done. And if this goes well, I could do many of them. :)

Today, being Thursday, brings us the Thursday Threesome, brought to us this week by blenders and The Back Porch.

Onesome: Envision-- How much television do you watch each week? Are you one of those who can call up the nightly program schedules for the major networks (and a cable channel or two) in your head? ...or do you have to search the paper to find out when the Thanksgiving Day parade is? (Hint: It's on a Thursday.)
Well, I can call up the shows I watch for any given night. Not sure I could do the shows around them, however. :)

And, just in case you missed it somehow, I watch a lot of TV each week. Sunday night is Alias. Monday is 7th Heaven and CSI: Miami. Tuesday is I’m With Her and 24. Wednesday is Enterprise and Angel with an episode of Babylon 5 from my DVD’s thrown in for good measure. Thursday is my biggest night. I watch Survivor, CSI, and Without a Trace on CBS plus Friends and What I Like About You. Since I don’t get home until 8:30 most weeks, parts of this get recorded for weekend viewing. Friday brings Reba, Hope and Faith, and Life with Bonnie. Saturday, there’s an hour and a half of shows I must watch on Fox News. And right now I’m watching the Angel reruns on TNT to catch up on the back story I missed.

So basically, I have a part time job in TV viewing. If only I could figure out a way to get paid for it. I do comment on some of them over at Snarkfest.

Twosome: whirled-- Oh, my! That holiday stuff is coming up soon! Are you ready for Thanksgiving? ...or are you going to be whirling around at the last minute?
I’m heading up to my parents. Getting ready will involve packing the night before. :) I do have my traditional Monday after day off so I can drive home minus all the traffic. And I do need to find my Patrick Stuart CD’s of A Christmas Carol, which I always listen to on the way home.

Threesome: peas-- Shine on the healthy stuff; we really don't care if you eat your vegetables (okay, the mom's here on the Porch do ): what are you looking forward to eating on Thanksgiving that you just cannot get the rest of the year?
Stuffing and pumpkin pie! My mouth is watering already!

Last night was fun. Went down to downtown LA to see The Phantom of the Opera. Amoung those attending were Debbie and Josh and Bonnie and Babylon 5 Eric. Ironically enough, I hadn't seen most of them in a while, so I enjoyed seeing and hanging out with them. I also enjoyed the play itself, although I didn't like it as much as others seem to. Part of it was I was sure I knew how it would end, and I didn't want it to end that way at all. And part of it was because I couldn't feel sorry enough for the Phantom. When it comes down to it, he was a horrid person, and no amount of back story can make that right. Still, there is some stunning music, and if I saw it again, I'm sure I'd enjoy it more because I already know what's going to happen.

The bad part was that we went out for drinks afterward, and I didn't get home until 2:30 AM. See, to do something like that, it takes at least an hour of discussion before hand and then wandering around forever lost. :) Enjoyed every minute of it, but I had a hard time getting up this morning. Once I got up and out the door, I've been doing fine. Still, I think I'll probably hit the hay as soon as the guys leave tonight.

And in other news, I DID IT!!!! I wrote my 400th review today. Goal met. I plan to bask in that joy for the rest of the week, letting my reviews just sit while I read and listen and do whatever for fun. Ok, so the next book I read will get reviewed, but I won't be looking to do that until next week sometime. Beside, four reviews is a good number for a week.

Finally, I wanted to do the free association game again this week.

1. Leapfrog:: Learning pads
   
2. Co-workers:: crazy
   
3. Mustang:: my college mascott
   
4. Wafer:: this
   
5. Nicotine:: patch
   
6. Fast food:: dinner
   
7. Suffocate:: plastic bag
   
8. Myth:: legend
   
9. Lane:: country road
   
10. Unexpected::surprise
    

Have a good evening.