Bad "luck" comes in 3s

1. Appendectomy
2. Grama passed on Thanksgiving
3. Furnace broke at the start of our first real cold spell

Fun!!

Governors make for good Presidential candidates - so its exciting to have a Governor enter the race for the Democratic nomination for 2008. Tom Vilsack, Governor of Iowa has launched an exploration into running for the nomination - though admittedly he doesn't have much mindshare yet nationally. But thats ok, I think its great he's giving it a shot - a President from the Midwest could be a good thing. I would love to see a women in office, but I just don't feel like I can trust Hillary. And as inspiring as Obama can be, is he Presidential material just yet?! I'm not sure.

And the plot thickens...

I know lots of people are all a flutter over Battlestar Galactica, and why wouldn't you be - its chuck full of drama and political intrigue. I've been reading rumors of it moving to Sunday nights and maybe even over to the NBC mother ship - thats great and all but holy crap, Dexter is this season's winner hands down. With it's plot thickening twists, it just keeps getting better and better. You know Paul is going to get chopped up - I'm loving the anticipation of his ending. But what really takes the cake so far is the Rudy character - what is going on with him?! We know he's the ITK, but what we don't know his is past and how he knows so much about Dexter. I can't imagine a serial killer just dropping out of no where and suddenly discovering Dexter and his past accomplishments. One commenter suggested they might be brothers - that would be really screwed up but it might also tie up some plot lines as well. But I'm not thinking (hoping) thats the case at all - that would be below the writing we've seen thus far. I think it all depends what we learn of Dexter's past - what was Harry hiding? Wouldn't have knowing where he came from have helped Dexter know why he is who he is? I'm just asking, wondering, waiting for the next episode to reveal more. Man, I hope this isn't going to be a short season either - I want more. Besides, what might Dexter's reaction be to the impending news Rita is about to share? You know thats where she is headed with the kids. Hehe.

Google Office Widget

Oh this is bloody fantastic! Google launched a little Thanksgiving treat in the form of this little gadget for the Google Homepage to quick launch the recent documents created or modified in the Google Docs & Spreadsheets application. This is something I have been waiting for - though a dashboard widget would be really sweet too!

Dexter

Dexter has got to be my new favorite show of the season - not that Heroes and BSG don't have very high places of honor as well, but Dexter is stealing the show. Sunday's episode was fantastic, the kind that cements a show in the viewers conscience as being really damn good. The story comes together, the characters are better revealed and the plot sure as hell thickens. Hmm, hmm, good!

Apple has a new Shuffle commercial out on the airwaves. And somehow I missed it during Heroes last night:(

We have Wii!

Holy crap last night was cold (17-20F) - especially since we didn't fully plan on going out last night, at least we didn't have a plan for making it through all those hours. We ended up heading out at 3:30am to a Target that was said to have 200+ units available. We got there at about 70th in line and figured even if they had fewer than 200 units we'd be fine. I had never seen tents lined up outside a store before - all my line moments for the Apple Store were indoors.

Anyway, shortly before 8am we got our ticket, a Wii t-shirt, cookies and a little shopping card to select all the games and accessories we wanted. By 8:18 we were in the car and finally headed home to have a little fun and take one heck of a rewarding nap.

Canuck Hunks

Oh la la Paris links to the Calgary Sun's Sexiest Canadian Man Alive - apparently they weren't all that thrilled with Clooney winning again. When will his saggy ass go away?! I'm just sayin'. Anyway, Ryan Reynolds takes home the crown - gotta love that!! Ryan Gosling takes second place - yummy!

Game Console Weekend

Alirght, so who is going to be in line tomorrow morning for the release of the Playstation 3?! Wednesday afternoon at about 3pm I saw two middleage men curled up in blankets outside a relatively backwater Circuit City. It was surreal and stupid all at the same time. The PS3 is going to be nice for sure, especially after they get all the kinks worked out of it, but I can't help but feel the price is just too much to ask yet. So my money is going to be on the Wii Sunday morning. Bill and I are headed out early in the morning in hopes of getting placed well at a store - we'll have several to choose from just incase. I saw a commerical for the WIi and how the new remote is going to kick ass - that sold it for me right there. (If I can find the video again I'll post it here.) Its all about the remote, oh and its half as much!!

Cats make me laugh

CNN joins in on 'pushing' the Zune - sort of

CNN is hit or mishttp://beta.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifs in my opinion, but this little clip of their Zune review is definitely a hit shall we say. Watch it through to the end for the real humdinger!!

Gay Marriage in South Africa

South Africa has become the fifth nation in the world to advance human rights and dignity to all its citizens, no matter whom they love. This is an amazing advance for a country where just two decades ago was steep in apartheid. I must admit when the news stories first came out about the possibility of this legislation passing I was quite skeptical - perhaps its my 'american' impressions of what Africa is really like.

Appendectomy

One sure fire way to ruin a weekend: have a bad meal at Thai restaurant, set off appendicitis, and have surgery. I had never gone under the knife before or stayed in the hospital overnight - so this was all sorts of a new experience for me to say the least. But the worst it over, it wasn't just blocked gas like I had thought for much of the day on Saturday, for the pain that is. The bill hasn't arrived yet and all expectations are for a big headache. Bill, coming for the land of universal health care to the north, is quite upset knowing a bill is coming for something he'd normally not know how much it cost. And just before Christmas too - no Nintendo Wii for this household.

Ah well, now I have plenty of time to catch up and get ahead on the homework front. I got an extension on the final, but I don't want to prolong that any longer than necessary.

Update: I did want to mention the fine treatment Bill received while he was at the hospital with me during this process. I think we've all read some of the horror stories about partners and boyfriends not being able to stay at each other's side in the hospital. Having not been a patient in a hospital before, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Much to my relief the staff treated Bill with respect just as I would have wanted. We were both impressed that his presence was such a non-issue for everyone at the hospital.

One step at a time.

Rumsfeld Resignation

Original link via TUAW.

Rural Minnesota

I'm in rural Minnesota today, on the old homestead. Last night I went out with some old friends to a little bar/restaurant in a tiny little village. The whole place was full of hunters in from a long day and trekking through the woods trying to shoot stuff. Deer season is in full swing around here, and boy I sure don't miss it. (Full disclosure: I've been on those hunting excursion in the past when Dad still thought I could be a 'real' boy) I get nervous when I go into realms of super-manhoodism - I wonder if one wrong look on my part will change my life for good. I've never had any such problems, but I've read enough horror stories in the news to know better. Of course, I'm a nervous kind of fellow anyway, so that doesn't help all that much.

But I'm actually down here doing some last minute volunteering for a friend of mine running for re-election. I'm looking forward to Wednesday morning to read how all of the elections come out. I don't pay much attention on election night - I learned my lesson during the Gore/Bush election. I went to bed and everything was just fine, then I woke to hear my roommate shouting in glee as it was reported Bush won the election. This has certainly been an interesting election year - the republicans certainly seem to have a lot of skeletons in the closet, including themselves in some cases. I've been fortunate to be off most politicians lists this year - hardly a brochure in my mailbox and not a single phone call. Its been nice!

Ford Surprises

I am certainly no fan of Ford vehicles - the Mustang is a weak exception. Lately though Ford has been showing off its CUV concept - the Fairlane - and this morning Autoblog is reporting the production model will be almost identical to the concept model seen above. I'm not saying you'll ever see me owning one of these, I'm committed to Mini, but this is certainly an attractive new model. Its got a little bit of a Land Rover look to it, but I especially like the concave lines along the side.

Scrybe: Online and Offline

I just read this morning's downloadsquad review of the scrybe beta. Its yet another online office productivity suite of applications, but this one looks like its really going to stand out. First of all, it will work with Safari, which Google Documents (formerly known as Writely) isn't able to do yet. Secondly, and most importantly of all - you can go offline with just a couple of steps and no software to download. You just set your browser to 'work offline' and then log in to the system and go to work. I imagine it keeps a copy of all your work on your computer and keeps them in sync when you're online. This is huge, now there is really no reason to use Word or any other desktop application - unless you're a hardcore word processor I suppose.

I've signed up for an invite, can't wait to start trying this out. I have been using Google Documents quite a bit lately, its just so convenient.