Weeeee! let the games begin!!

Level Of Difficulty at Work: 3.5 out of 10
NapTime During Lunch: none, was hanging out with the plumber fixing a shower that's been on for 14 hours.

My life is completed..
whelp it was fun while it lasted.. i completed half-Life2.. and it didn't take long in my part.. it was a disapointment, since playing half-life 1 took me a month in college, which meant i had much more time playing the game. Well like usual if theres any cheat codes, which there usually is. i do another run at it at my leisure farting around cheating, seeing what kinda whacky stuff i can do. But the only slick move i've done was to use the gravity gun, pick up a motion-sensor turret and ran around with it, while it shot everybody.. heh effortless killing!

at least the game comes with Counter-Strike:Source.. that game won't ever die.. even though it's the same maps as from way back..

Level Of Difficulty at Work: 2 out of 10
NapTime During Lunch: 36min

Man, i've been so busy (half-life2) that i have no time to scribble no more (danged half-life2)..
Hmmz what has happened since.. Fluffielady and i went to our cousins and ate t-day dindin.. they aren't traditional and fluffielady felt kinda wierd about it.. no turkey? wassup with that? But on that same day we busted out our first xmas tree.. My family's never had one ever, so it's kinda cool. I think a fake one will do fine, since we're not into the high-maintenance of a live xmas tree (like the lawn), that a fake one will do. We also put up lights on the fence and the light post.. and i did my first home modification. Splicing an electrical line with a switch. The thing shoulda had one in the first place but this house is funny like that. Now we can turn on and off the light post light and plug from the garage.. weee! it's not the way i wanted to do it.. i could go back and redo it.. one day.. one day..

After that Capt'n D and i ventured to Northstar on friday to visit the virgin powder.. Mmm it snowed the night before and then the day after. I like how i woke up at 5:30am, turned on the TV, and saw people lined up ready to go shop like theres no end. i think this whole 'black friday' thing is pretty much all hype, ever since the dot-com crash theres not much good goodies that's worth waking up bizarrily early to save a few bucks. For Me n Capt'n D, we boarded till about 3pm.. man the first go of the season is a buttkicker! Gotta get used to the mountain air (oh no!) and getting used to the board again. It was cool, only half of northstar was open but the one half we did was good enough. There was a bunch of people there, not as much as on weekends, but almost. Also they're rebuilding their little village so it's all construction action. After Northstar, we went to Fry's at sacramento and i got a new power supply and AAAA batteries.. yep quadruple A's for the laser pointer(if i could find it).. There weren't anything else that piqued our interest. Capt'n D wanted a small HD.. well hows a 160GB for 60$ after rebates.. heh.. small..

Going back to my current toy, half life2.. i love the game. not only do you own the enemy with a barrage of weapons, but the puzzles utilize this variety of tools. Theres 2 new weapons which i just got, the gravity gun and the zerg thingie. The gravity gun is sweet, you can pick up, bring to, and push away inanimate objects; parts of fences, boxes, barrels, guns. You can push away cars, use barrels as a shield, toss flammable barrels into enemies. Kinda cool. The zerg dealio is like the heart of this giant bug that you kill. Once you have it, all the little bugs are under your control. you can send them forward, go attack your enemies, it's your own mini-army!

i wake up and dada for a while and figure that i should be returning this cd that i bought for roxanne which she also bought to best buy. I'm about to head out and theres a package on the ground what could it be?
I got my Half-Life 2!! Woohoo!
i guess i'm not going to return the cd.. instead, i installed but never got to play the game, since my brother needed the portable compressor/jumper thing. And Fluffielady was out of school and we were to meet at hillsdale for lunch and shopping (what else). Well we did get a bunch of gift cards.. i do have to say though, it's my 2nd time shopping at a Mervins.. 1st time was in bakersfield, more than half a year ago (or more?). Well we got the gift card and at least they sold kitchen stuff.. We got some baking pans, photo albums, candles(ugh!). I should keep a count of how many is in the house.. i know we have 3 wedding day scented candles, the large ones. oi!

the game is pretty good.. nice rendering, excellent use of light and texture, super physics and items have 'stuff'.. things like weight, if it could be pierced by bullets. Wood shatters like how it does, and the timbers float like how timber-in-water is supposed to. The only thing i don't like is its sorta hard drive intensive (4.5gb!, 5cd's, loads forever, i'm running a athlon xp 3000+ with corsair 256mb CL2.0 ddr333.. maybe i need 512, oi another CL2.0 how much is that?! 65$!!, 115 for 512, hmmz.. ), and it's new validation system. Yea they want to make sure you bought the puppy and it's not a fake (sorry sherwin). But it takes forever to 'validate'. Also i now have this dada startup icon that's semi-icq, semi-game chooser.. You can link friends who also have Half Life2 and it's supposed to tell you when your friends are online, so that you could play CS together.
CS on the other hand is pretty good, a bit faster a bit smoother, but same ol game play. Now i need to find another binding tool so that i just press one key and all my item purchases are done.
i think i'm going to be stuck in the room playing for a bit.. uh oh! bad bad video games..

Level Of Difficulty at Work: 1 out of 10 (getting used to the lame ol groove at work.. again)
NapTime During Lunch: 42min (waiting for the sandwich)
Little Luccas Sandwich: Tuna salad.. Not bad! i think i'm almost done with the whole menu.

Yep, another Shack Run at work. All i have left is like italian turkey.. whats that? and italian roast beef? Of course theres some items that i'm not in the mood for, but maybe one week i'll jump for it.

Updated my webpages with my 'online' address.



Yesterday was pretty cool. The extended gang came and hung out at vick's for early T-day foodage. Fluffielady couldn't make it, she was sick the days before it, but was feeling better, until today (saturday), she felt like crap again. She stayed pretty much all in bed wrapped in 2 blankies, the gang made a quite big doggie bag for the two of us. There was bunches of food, it was mad! But it was quite enjoyable. I guess once in a while you can align all the stars and planets to bust such an event. I wonder whens the next (xmas) heh. When i rode to work i *knew* i was gonna be held over. It was too late for me to call in sick, so i worked and at about 10:50am.. i knew it.. off to the hospital with some nut for a slight gash, which required 3 staples.. thats quite nasty! This guy i brought was one of them squirmy, talks-alot kinda guys. I think he's autistic, he goes and does one task and freezes until the next. Or he'll do the task and wait until it's ok to complete it.. And these tasks are like simple. He won't walk into a doorway until the gate is fully open and the doors have stopped moving kinda deal. But hey, this is the creme-de-la-creme that i handle.. yes? The whole event went by and i got outta work at 3:40pm.. slightly late, but i'm glad i made the foodies the day before. Yeah, yesterday had a bit of techie talk, a bit of foods here n there, and we got to see a dog wrestling show woo! what more could you ask? But i did learn a few things, like thrown socks, and dutch ovens.. i musta missed that class back in the day.

Today at work was also uneventful. Got home and decided to make some more cornbread for tonights early t-day dindins with my parents and aunt from spain whom she's leaving ON thanksgiving day, it's not her fault, she didn't know it as that special day. Fluffielady went but was wearing 5 layers of clothes. oi, she was doing the whole hacking, coughing, sniffling thing but looked and acted alot better than yesterday.. =( poor girl.

So my intake already for the past 2 days is: 1 fried turkey, 1 baked turkey, 1 ham, 1 roast beef, 2 stove tops, 2 cornbreads, 2 potato mash, lots of soda, lots of vine, and lots of assorted other dealios. Let's see what we're gonna have on Thanksgiving day dinner with my cousins! (Lordy!)

Level Of Difficulty at Work: 2 out of 10
NapTime During Lunch: 19min (it was mainly lids closed for a blink of a moment)

i just gotta say that i love my moto.. i've noticed that when i drive my car i don't drive as fast or go all over the place as much, but i still do once in a while. But when i'm on the moto, i am that deboning knife skillfully cutting the edges of the road.. It's beautiful.
I almost died yesterday but thats ok.. I'm on the 2nd lane to the left of the 4 laned-280, and theres light traffic. This dood enters from an onramp, cuts over one lane, and cuts again into mine. Theres nobody around us, and he cuts slowly, so by the time i noticed, he's 1/4 of the car in my lane, and my bike and his rear door match. I have enough time to honk, but the guy still comes over. Heck i coulda knocked on the door but that woulda been another outcome. So a little tap on the brake, a little shoulder lean to the right and a flick of the right wrist and i pass the guy. He waves apologetically.
Can nobody see a yellow motorcycle on a sunny day? or a car in that case? Are my ninja skills that great? Thats probably why i was so good at hide-n-seek. My kung-fu is good yes?

I've created what i think is the next level of this old Recipe of the Potatos of Death.. I think the peeps are gonna love it, and Cornbread with corn in it.. Ahhh yea good ol classic..
Now i'm looking for deep frying recipes, since fluffielady and i got a deep fryer as a present! woohoo!

Level Of Difficulty at Work: 5 out of 10 (make the pain go away!)
NapTime During Lunch: 35min

work is work, the usual it's-a-city-job-don't-stress-over-it-theres-always-someone-else-to-take-your-place.. oh ok..

Updated my homepage.. added lessons on how to hang off a pole!
Also it seems like the crew will have it's first full fledged real-deal turkey gathering! woohoo!
Fluffielady and i now have 3 turkey gatherings to go. At least they aren't all on the same day!

Level Of Difficulty at Work: 3 out of 10 (Goodness, back to work.. blah!)
NapTime During Lunch: 39min

Ugh, i'm not feeling it for work. The smell is what hits you when you enter.. and that wasn't the worst of it. i had an adventure with a pooper person.. man...

Another geeky tidbits.. For the ladies who wanna snuggle up with quarter a man. And for the man who wants a tidbit of japanese kink (sherwin).

man o man.. another 23 years of this???

The fun is over, and now it's paperwork time..

Got the wedding licence certified, and all the health insurance going. Deposited monies, got back cracked, and ate at Fluffielady's favorite place Nan Yang in oakland / berkeley. Mmm garlic mango noodles.. Got home and played with the roomba, and started to put away the presents. Silly Roomba was all full with dustbunnies already!
Good news, the photographer came by and dropped off the pics. He was contracted to print 350, but couldn't knock it down to less than 440. So he just printed them, he's taken about 1000, 5 cd-r's full. Goodness! Some of the pics from the palace of fine arts seemed a bit off. Like a green tint, and the bridesmaids dresses came out teal-ish, but photoshop can change it easy. The other pics came out pretty good. The best was some candid shots and alot of table shots which was really good. The photographer said that the prints are of proof quality, but they seem pretty good. I wonder how the professional style will come out as. We're gonna pick a bit for our parents and see how they pop out.
8-Megapixel, 17mb Files.. My life is digital, and i can manipulate it.. mwahahaha!

Muffy here is ready for a trot out on the town..

Fluffielady and i turn pro at this golf kart action. She likes to pound on the gas and make your neck snap, while i like to finess the puppy smoothly around the corners.
*Someone Went on a Shopping Spree*
Alas, our time here is over. Fluffielady really liked the robes that were included in the place that she decided to get one.
The weather was a little worse than yesterday. Yesterday it sprinkle a bit, here and there, on n off. Today it poured instead of sprinkle but it was still on-n-off.
We found old town Monterey and a special restauraunt,

ToAsTiEs Cafe? How original is that? Alas there was no ToAsTiEs hookup, even though my car was parked there with the licence plate n all that. At least the calimari burger was pretty good!

We roamed the 17-mile roam.. i'd like to do that on a bicycle one day. And trotted off to Carmel-by-the-sea, we hit some shops.. She *had* to buy these tall tapered candlesticks, but i guess for 1$ each. oi! Then we hit the coach store, and oh my it's sale time! I dunno if they're trying to make you feel better. But the reciept was trying to emulate Albertsons or something. i guess it does feel a little better knowing you've saved 220$.. Do you want to know how much we've spent though? it wasn't *that* much. One Handbag, One purse, a knit beanie, and a scarf.. I guess, we got a few $'s from the wedding.. and as for me, the salesmen assured that there *has* to be something for me.. I'd like a coach over-under leather case for take-down shotguns, but nope.. Not in this store, and as for shotguns, i've been eyeing a certain little piece for 3-gun (M-1 Practical for IPSC Shotgun) *wink*.. And to make it all fair, i'll engrave it.. 'Nov. 6th 2004.. It was a blast!' yea right! i don't even wanna know how much that puppy costs (one day i might get it though)!

Afterwards, we were supposed to head towards gilroy after carmel, but missed a turnoff, it was ok, Fluffielady was ok with her little purchase and here we are back home..
Oh ya an another tidbit, I had the hardest time finding a Chevron.. Yes fluffielady thinks i'm tweaked in the head. But Delilah has only 1-tank of shell, and that was the first tank bought by the car dealer, ever since that it's been chevron.. We drove by the main streets of Seaside, Marina, old town monterey, and Carmel, no chevrons.. Well i had to give up and go for a tank of this dada shell v-power stuff.. Sorry delilah, i'll try to avoid Monterey, unless i can find one. The only one i did find was in the middle of pebble beach, at the clubhouse of course. (update, there was one further down the road from where i turned off near the hotel.. bah!&*!%&#$!!)

(Scribbled Post On the 11th. Dated The 10th)


Waking up and seeing this is a pretty good thing. Crack the door open a lil and hear the waves crashing, very nice! What did we do Wednesday? almost nothing. We roamed the beach a bit. We ate the pre-made salads that we bought at Albertsons.. Mmm, yea we coulda eaten out, but we felt lazy, tired and lazy, or was that too lazy to be tired?


Come out outside on the balcony and yep, thats what i'm talking about. Dads-in-law was wondering if we were gonna roam the sand dunes of monterey.. yea you could say we did a bit..

Oh ya, i had my first massage deal ever. It was a 1-hr gig.. really nice, but a day later my back hurts. Maybe the lady unlocked some locked up muscles? My back is sore!

Mums-in-law found a bunch of coupon books for us to use. The only one we did get to pull out was at Fluffielady's Favorite place, the Fishhopper Restaurant. They had a coupon for a free appitizer, which was 10$, that and forgetting our clam chowders, which got comped, we got 17$ of free food! Pretty good deal!

(Scribbled this blog on the 11th, but dated the 9th..)


The Fairy Princess!

I got to upload some pics to the comp.. I'm sorry jhin, but there can only be one fairy princess.. Heh.. Today we headed to Monterey, CA to relax and calm ourselves down from the madness of working for the wedding. We started our drive and i decided to activate the Roomba while we drive down. Well i get a call from the security company saying that something has tripped the motion sensor.. i told them that it might have been the neighborhood cat(s) that might have snuck in. And since we just entered 280S. from skyline it wasn't that far. We left the caravan pack and went back to find nothing but the silly roomba doing it's thing. Silly Roomba! I guess my plan of having it clean the place while both of us are at work would be a bad idea.
Having that little task done, we met up with Parents-in-law (whoa), at the Monterey Aquarium. It's quite different than before, more kiddified i think. And It didn't seem as big as it used to. Or was i just missing it? i dunno, it seemed that i could breeze through the whole aquarium in an hour. Stare at some of Anya's cousins for a little and then get a bit seasick watching the tide push n pull the seaweed.
After a bit the cuz-o's and in-law's went off to LaLaLand.. i wonder how they did.. When they left, it was a dead silence that me and Fluffielady just stood in.. It was bizarre! We roamed a bit, theres an outlet mall right next to the aquarium, but it looks really dead inside. And we ventured off to our hotel, the Marina Dunes resort, a lil bit north of Monterey. It's quite a pretty place for couples, i'd recommend it. When we got there, they give you a Golf Kart (i had a go-karting flashback, crash the kart and game is over!) to stroll around. it was neat! The only scam is that they lay out all this stuff for you to use, but they charge you for it.. 1.75$ for a can of coke isn't really my thing..
We felt tired and lazy, so we went and got a pizza at Mountain Mikes, and some extra foods n drinks at albertsons. oh ya, that Spicy Pepsi, at first it tasted like coke, with that kick, but then it also had like a Dr. Pepper aftertaste, sorta pruny.. Silly pepsi peoples..

W Plus 2...

I guess 2 days into it, and i'm in training or something.. Drove my newly extended family around s.f. for some tourist action. Yanno, fishermans wharf, pier 39, 1hr boat ride on the red n white around the bay, some ice cream at G-Square. And in the process i was tending to this young 3 year old, one of roxanne's cousin. He's just turned 3, but he's still in the 'terrible two's stage.. or its on overtime.. Well this little 'damien' as some call him, somehow got a liking to me and stuck with me for most of the day. Most of the time he's ok, but when he sees something exciting (i.e. anything) he dashes for it. Straight B-line, like a missile. We improvised a leash type thing and it was like one of them out of control doggies that you've gotta hang on..
That lil guy needs to be tapped to the matrix.. maybe california won't have an energy crisis anymore with him on tap..
Tommorrows, we float to monterey. The extended familia is going that way as well, but they're gonna be heading towards LaLaLand afterward. We'll wave byebye, and hope the 3-year old won't notice that i've dissappeared...

ToysToysToys...

i gotz the Roomba! woohoo! tommorrow i'll let it loose and see what happens. It seems like a easy friendly thing. We got a whole lotta presents n what not which was cool! We got alotta crystal items and towels n sheets.. excellent! it's all good for the new bed. Jerry came over and downloaded a movie clip or two of our dancing queen action.. hahaha, we shoulda practiced at least once.. oi!
Thank you all for the gifts and $$$'s.. thank you all for coming and supporting us in seeing all the madness that came together for one magical night.

W Plus 1...

I wake up and what's this shiny thing on my hand!??



All-in-all.. everything came out excellent! Thank you everybody who helped out, especially Fluffielady's Aunt and cousins, and my family friends who went balls to the walls in decorating and producing all the reception dinner tableflowers! It was a beautiful day, at the beginning it was ok and on schedule. We took pics at the palace of fine arts.. and whats the wierdest thing you could see?


Uh, You park cars there.. not your sheep!

Yea, uh whats up with the sheep? Just because theres 3 bridal parties at the palace of fine arts doesn't mean someones gotta bust out the sheep! We took our pics at the palace and headed back to the church for a 'rehearsal'.. yea right.. it was a cluster.. Wheres this, wheres that.. jeez! We went to the hall and saw how it was decorated.. it was but wasn't what we expected.. but at that time it was W minus 20 minutes, thats it.. just let it go, it's too late at that point.. It looked excellent none the less..
This whole week was a blur, but once the ceremony began, time went back to normal, acutally it slowed greatly.. It's probably all the kneeling, standing, going to fluffielady's right side.. left side.. without trampling the dress.. Anyways it was a fun mass. Now everybody at work is gonna call me Toasty.. There was a reason my wedding invite had 'Toasty' on it.. The whole bride's side only knows me as Toasty. At the ceremony both my names were used, at first i thought 'jeez' i thought this is a formal deal, you know the whole church, priest thing.. but i figured it's starting to loosen up and the priest seemed cool about it, so i decided to have fun with it.
The reception was excellent.. i think we were a bit early on our scheduling.. Both of our parents had good speeches, but my brothers was one of those excellent hearttouching ones. Our photographer is a pretty cool dood. He was active in going here, n there taking this and that.. and wasn't too directive, but only to make the shot good. We got into the reception early and all the neceessary events occurred, quite quick, what was left was the open dance. Our first dance we wanted to practice, but never got to since the whole week flew by, it worked out. I was a bit tired at that stage, but i'm glad Fluffielady took the attention away from me with her improv dance action. When it was open dancing time, we thought it was 8:30-9pm.. but it was really 7pm.. Fluffielady really wanted to dance the night away, but this one night seemed to slow down really really slowly.. which was good, we got to roam around chat with peoples n what not. Our caterer was excellent, everything was done up all pretty, and the service was really good. I think our only booboo, was that when everything was done, i guess we were supposed to fold up all the tables and put the chairs away. But when we got to the hall early in the morning, there was a dinner the night before and the tables were laid out AND the hall was a mess, with spillage and everything. I got the message from the church people a bit too late. I hope it got fixed.. *doodoo*

Whelp i've gotta setup for the brunch and present opening.. weeeee!

W Minus 1...
When does the Madness end?!

Yesterday i was up at 6:30am and was going on and on till 2am.. Picked up 400$ of joseph schmidt, the only snag was my tuxedo didn't arrive. and my crew's suits were missing vests n ties.. i find out that the original tuxedo place was supposed to send it to the warehouse, but it did.. late.. so today i had to go back. I got the hookup though, my suit was free.. woohoo!

Last night ended very well. Happy ending.. almost?

Today, i actually got to sleep till 9am. and i actually got about 3 rounds of Rainbow Six 3 in before the day began. Picked up a bridesmaid and then came home, met with the midwest relatives and then started cooking a lunch for peoples.. It was cool, and it was sorta like a test of the wares in the house. All i know is all the kiddies like my retaining wall. And all the snail shells they could find.

Gotta go pick up the escalade to roll around in..

*Put on draft*

11:20pm. Just came back from practice. it was ok, we're winging it, 'cuz there was no priest guiding us. He told us how it went two days ago but it was paraphrased, not done, live action.

We had slight drama, when the hall people said that nobody was booked tommorrow.. okay, but we did.. it got straightened out. What happened was it was all complete but nobody informed the main person of the thing.. Well where was this main person? in LaLaLand, where chocolate bunnies come frolic under the chocolate waterfall. can you say Cookoo??

Ate dindins at the East Ocean Restraunt. it was cool, just that traffic sucked, well it was 7:10pm. Well i know i'm not a SUV fan, The escalade has space and nick nacks, but it sucks performance wise.. It accelerates and handles like a pregnant ox.. But then i am comparing it to a motorcycle, the scalple of the roads..

Now i'm dead tired, both roxanne and i are at that 'who cares' stage. Everything is set, but things are popping out. well you know what? who cares! We felt the same way after one day in paris, being all blown off since we're 'rich americans'.

Tomorrow.. the day of days is here.. I feel pretty good about it.. we dance yes?

One thing i've learned so far.. it's good to have people taking pics of even the preparation, thats good. 'cuz from what i hear, the wedding day is all a blur.. and pictures help you piece the day, bit by bit..

W Minus 3

at least i'm still on schedule, sorta..

Can't i have a tactical wedding?
We just did a practice tromp down the isle.. i think that since the groom goes down the isle first.. he should 'clear' the area with oh, an AR or at least a pistol.. "main isle clear.." heh.. Today fluffielady's parents arrive, and tommorrow, it's pick up this, pick up that, go here, go there time. And then fluffielady's extended family will arrive too..

Tommorrows main focus is cleaning da houz.
Yesterday, Got a haircut, i wanted my hair cutter (Stylist?) to come, but he needs to man the store. Boo! Hung out with vicks for lunch at the nameless restaurant with a name now. Yep, marriages, houses, kids (maybe), goodness! i guess after the quarter-life crisis, once you past that stage it's downhill with the next steps of life. I have 3 co-workers who are telling me that the minivan is your best friend.. Oh my, is that whats gonna happen??

Ugh, seating arrangements suck! And No sherwin, i'm not making my reception 'open-seating' like southwest airlines.. =p

W Minus 5

Ahhh yea the madness begins. I think this week is the only week where i've gotta write down exactly what i'm doing day-by-day. Pickup this, go here, do that, Get this.. As long as it's all done 1 minute before the event. it'll be all good..

Level Of Difficulty at Work: 3 out of 10 (at least it was out in the street, but my feet were killing me!)

Yesterday i got to hang out in the streets of san francisco for the Halloween Part.2 event.. The last time i went was 2-3 years ago and it was a zoo! an uncontrollable zoo! Masses of humanity all clumped up in a 9-block range, and then had nothing. It was just people hanging out! There were numerous stabbings and fights, it was one of those madhouses. But we've evolved. This year it's all barricaded (thats why i was there) and our 'professional presence' showed to the people that if anything happens you'll be caught. I'd say there were about 100+ of my brethern there suited-n-booted, ready for action. Me and my team were stationed at the main entrance to the zoo, at market and church streets. We looked for people to wasted to enter, people with 'items that can be construed as weapons' and to refuse any punk giving lip.
All i gotta say is.. Halloween in frisco is like 1-step away from a hedonistic orgy waiting to happen. Thats probably why there was the exotic erotic ball the week before so that they'd release their energies then..
Got home at 3am.. and man o man..

# posted by ToAsTy! @ Monday, November 01, 2004