Information overload (get ready)

I didn't realize it had been so long since my last post. So here's a super fast recap of what's been going on since:

1. Grimm and I went back to the park. We went much further in this time and it was a lot tougher. Fun but exhausting.

2. Went to the book sale and picked up a paperback copy of White Fang and a hardback of Martin Eden (both by Jack London), a hardback of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, and coffe table book about Volkswagen Beetles, a giant pop-up encyclopedia of dinosaurs, as well as a couple of books for Ricci. Grand total: $5. That's right, five smackaroos. That's why I went ahead and got the paperback of White Fang. I'll read it now for a buck and if I really want a hard copy later I'll find one. Afterwords we went by Halfprice because Ricci wanted a copy of Madeline hardback that I had seen the day before. It was a reprint though so she didn't want to spend five bucks on it. However I picked up a copy of Call it Courage for a quarter. No joke with tax and all I only spent 27 cents. Awesome.

3. Ricci's great-grandfather Pappo passed on weekend before last. The funeral was last Monday and then we went back this past Saturday to his farm with a bunch of the family to clean up and take things to remember him and his wife Nanny by. I never met Nanny because she died 12 or so years ago, long before I had any relation to the Barnes, Lowaks or Fenners. It's really cool to go through all of their stuff (in a totally respectful way). I picked up a couple of pins for my collection and some glasses from the old Pearl brewery. It was good to see the family laughing and joking about the things they remembered about that house or about Nanny and Pappo.

4. Ricci and I (mostly Ricci) spent last Tuesday decorating one of the guest bedrooms. She painted the walls green and we hung up a bunch of my old posters. I tend to hang out in there because it's mostly my old stuff as opposed to the frilly stuff in our bedroom. If we stay here for med school we're going to get a big desk and that will be my office/study room. That's why Ricci wanted to make it look nice, so I could enjoy being in there for hours on end when I study. Part of the decorating process included buying a shadow box for all of my pins and buttons. So now I can actually display them all. There's still some room for more but I'll probably have to buy another box in a couple years.

5. Zach and Brandon came in last Thursday so we could all go watch Rifftrax Live: Plan 9 from Outer Space. From the same guys that did Mystery Science Theater 3000 comes a new movie-riffing show. However this one skips all the in-between stuff and goes right to poking fun at movies. Rifftrax.com offers downloadable audio of people making fun of movies. Then you provide the movie and play them at the same time on your computer or with a dvd player and iPod. This way they don't have to deal with royalties, etc. and can riff a movie as soon as it's released. For this event, however they were doing a live riffing of Plan 9 from Outer Space in Nashville, Tennessee. That was broadcast live to hundreds of theaters across the country. So the three of us went to go see it here, and had a blast. Zach also had a bootleg copy of Transformers 2 (though I don't support bootlegging or piracy). I watched and was dissappointed. I might go into that in another post, but it's too long for this one.

6. This week I got in my first issue of Wired magazine, my Cabella's fall 2009 catalog, and picked up a hardback copy of The Boxcar Children for a buck. I also finished Island Boy and I think I'm going to start Call it Courage next. IB was good. Not as good as I remember CiC being but I'm more partial to survival stories so I have nothing against Island Boy. It's a good read, though definitely aimed at a younger audience. It does a great job of telling the story while giving a view of life in ancient Hawaii.

I'm trying to finish all of my one-player games for the wii by Christmas so I can sell them back. I have Zelda:Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy. Both are enjoyable but Mario definitely moves faster and is less confusing/tedious, though the camera angles and controls for Galaxy often make me nauseous. I don't do backwards and upside down very well.

I found my leatherman. Very exciting/humbling. It was right where it was supposed to be. Somehow I thought I had lost it for several months... :|

Lastly, this morning when I got up to run with Grimm at 6, I found a swarm of ants on the counter attacking some rice krispie treats. awesome.

Sorry that was the update equivalent of a wildebeest stampede. ( In the gorge! Simba's down there!)

Josh out.