Wait, What Just Happened?

I'm a little confused. Yesterday I saw a good deal on a 1 TB hard drive in the newspaper ad from Fry's Electronics. I've been keeping an eye out for deals on hard drives. 300 hours of recorded television on my MythTV box just isn't cutting it. I suppose I could just get around to watching the last 4 seasons of 24... Someday. But taking thousands of 10 mega-pixel pictures in a month is also creating a need for more disk space.

So, I went to Fry's and of course they were out of the drive in their ad. That part made sense to me. I've never gone to Fry's to buy something in their ad and actually fond it. Come to think of it, I never really buy anything at Fry's anymore. I go there, spend a few hours looking at everything, and then go home and start ordering stuff online. The last time I can remember buying something substantial at Fry's was around 1998, back when the Interwebs were just getting established and I had to listen to 30 seconds of strange beeps and squeals coming from my modem every time I connected. All for a glorious 7kB/s! Shudder.

But yesterday, I went to Fry's, asked a sales associate for help, and actually received it. He told me they had sold out of their special, but had another drive, a better drive, for only $10 more (still a reasonable price). We went to the shelf and didn't find any (also not surprising). He said "I'll go check the back" and emerged a minute later with a drive marked $20 more than he had just quoted me. He went to the register and printed a form for me that reduced the price on that drive to what he had quoted me. What?!?!

I was very confused. I asked someone at Fry's for hep and less than 5 minutes later I was holding (almost) what I asked for. And I actually bought it. And it was a good deal. And it wasn't broken when I took it out of the box.

In the days of reliable online vendors like NewEgg and bargain basement vendors like Meritline, ComputerGeeks and DealExtreme coupled with a plethora of deal-sleuthing websites, I was beginning to think that the days of brick and mortar stores like Fry's were numbered. And they probably are. But perhaps they will be around slightly longer than I thought.

Dude...

I have a baby son!!! On a scale of 1 to10, he's CRAZY AWESOME!!!

Quality vs. Quantity

I sporadically watch a lot of movies. Sometimes I skip a week or two, but sometimes I average one a day. I accomplish this through my Blockbuster subscriptions which affords me 3 movies at a time and allows me to exchange my mailed movies in the store for new movies. Since I pay a flat monthly fee, I'm compelled to maximize the return on my investment. I'd say it's rarely less than 10 in a month.

Sadly, there just aren't that many great movies these days, or if there are, I'm not looking in the right places. When you take all the big name releases and eliminate all of the sappy romance movies, tearjerkers, Larry the Cable Guy movies, movies with musicians-turned-actors, and movies starring Martin Lawrence, I've probably seen most of the rest.

So I watch B movies, movies that might be good, but that I would never pay $7 to watch in the theater. Usually they are about as good (or bad) as I expect. But occasionally, I am pleasantly surprised.

This month's movie pick: Shoot 'Em Up. I passed this movie on the shelves several times. The wife actually picked this one out. I can see why this movie was relatively undetected, but I think it's great. It stars Clive Owen of Sin City fame, and Paul Giamatti, who has always been one of my favorite actors. This gritty, fast-paced, action-packed movie has the perfect balance of relentless shooting, crazy action sequences, and dry, witty humor. It's not at all a family movie, but it was just fun to watch. This movie even breaks the "90-minute rule" by 4 minutes, but it's still great.

So throw this one on your Blockbuster or Net Flix list. And if you don't have a Net Flix of Blockbuster subscription, then this probably doesn't apply to you. I don't think this movie made it onto VHS! :-)

NaNoWriWhat?

OK, so my attempt at writing a novel in a month was a little less stellar than what I had expected. I only made it to about 18K instead of 50K. But I was on track for the first two weeks, then I just stopped writing. So what are my lame excuses for not finishing?

• Passing my entrepreneurship class seemed more important, and less expensive.
• Despite what Chris Baty says, plot doesn't happen, at least not for me.
• During the Thanksgiving break, my last chance to catch up, I was clinically addicted to several seasons of 24 recorded on my mythbox.
• Tryptophan.
  
• I'm kinda lazy. I have a tendency for starting things and then not fi
  

I convinced someone at work to participate and they started a week late and finished a week early, so in a sense, I won by proxy, right? Right?

I did enjoy the time I spent writing, and I had some funny things happen in my book. Maybe it worth finishing. Well, probably not.

Bar Maid Final Update...

As you may know, Jae ran a 5K dressed as a barmaid on Halloween. We collected over $700 for charity: the Toys For Tots and Teens program that is run by volunteers at work to directly benefit needy children in the local community. Today we went to purchase toys for the children. We filled three shopping carts and also bought two bikes! The pictures of our shopping spree have been added to the photo collection.

Good thing we had at least a couple of women come help us shop, otherwise needy girls would be getting Lincoln Logs and LEGOs for the holidays!

Falling Behind...

I'm falling further and further behind in my novel. At this point, I'm about 6,000 words behind schedule. Between school, being tired, and lack of motivation, I'm having a hard time continuing... Hopefully I can break the trend and power through some content in the next couple of days.

I should know better than to read manuals by now...

Mark has a copy of Chris Beaty's book "No Plot? No Problem! A Low-stress, High-velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days". First of all, Chris gets points for having such a length title, although he hyphenated words, sacrificing word count for the sake of grammar. This must not be his first draft. :-)

When I skim through his book, I see topics that distract me. Getting to know my characters by asking them questions? Subplots? I barely even have a plot! Skimming his book makes me realize just how much I may be leaving out - or at least how much work I am leaving for future drafts.

So why am I really doing this? Two words. Strong Bad. "Yeah, I wrote a children's boook. Who hasn't? I mean, kids can barely read as it is so how hard can it be to write for them?"