MikeBrum.com

Yesterday consisted of a lot of Super Paper Mario and a break to go grocery shopping. Super Paper Mario is still really fun and grocery shopping is still a pain in the ass… but necessary.

The big plan for tonight is to put away the dishes that I put into the dishwasher before leaving today, do at least a load of laundry and put away the laundry that’s clean but unfolded. Other than that, probably just relax and watch TV. We’ll see what happens after the productive stuff is taken care of.

Not sure what’s going on this weekend. Might be going out on Saturday night, but I don’t have any idea about the specifics. I might want to see if I can get my soft top on my jeep since the weather is behaving. I’ll have to call my dad and see if he has time to help me since the top is in his garage and I’ll need some assistance getting the hard top off for sure.

Sunday is totally open right now.

All-in-all, it looks like it should be a good mix. I just need to get through one more day of work and at 3:30 I’m out.

Last night Corinne and I finished up watching Carnivale. I was a bit disappointed with the “ending”, but that’s because it was supposed to be a season finale, not a series finale. Either way, the series was great and I wish I had a few more seasons to watch… but that’s just not going to happen.

Last night I managed to knee my nightstand. I have no idea why, but I brought my knee up rather high (imagine if you were trying to knee someone in the chest) and I happened to hit the very corner of my nightstand. Needlessly to say, that woke me up and it hurt. I now have a scrape and a small scab where I probably bled a tiny bit, but couldn’t be bothered to check it out last night. Annoying.

I think I’m going to see MC Chris in Providence this weekend. He’s also playing in Boston (The Middle East, for those that are interested) next week. Should be fun. I missed him the last time he was around, but not this time.

If the weather would finally break, I think this spring is shaping up rather well.

We got up earlyish for a Saturday and headed out to a local dive shop and signed up for scuba lessons. The class is the weekend of May 19th and then after that we’ll figure out the time to take the open water part. By sometime in June, we’ll be certified divers – very exciting!

Then we took a trip to Home Depot where I had to pick up a wrench set and we got some lightbulbs. We had a few different types of lights that went out and that was the best place to get them.

Once we got back home, we swapped out the lights and I installed a pair of nerf bars that I bought on my Jeep (with the help of Corinne).

Right now we’re just relaxing and going to probably do nothing for a couple of hours and head out to a party around 8:30.

Tomorrow, despite the shitty weather, I’ll be driving down to Rehoboth and will be seeing my parents.

Quite a full weekend.

Last weekend in Maine wasn’t too bad. The driving wasn’t fun, but it was far from horrible.

Yesterday I picked up Super Paper Mario for the Wii. I’ve only played it for about 10 minutes, but it’s fun so far. I can definitely see the only real criticism that I’ve read: that a lot of the dialogue is overly wordy. I’m hoping that I’m just getting a bigger-than-normal dose since I just started out and they’re trying to hook you into the plot. We’ll see. Either way, the gameplay is neat and I think I’m going to enjoy it.

I also picked up Scrabble (the board game, not a video game) and Corinne and I have been playing. The most interesting part of that is looking at how different our vocabularies are. It’s certainly not bad in any way, just interesting.

Anyway, it’s mid April and tomorrow is going to see sleet and snow. What the fuck is wrong with New England? I’m so ready for a warmer climate.

I took this picture a couple of days ago in my office building. It’s not actually in our office itself, but in one of the common areas in the building.

Look safe to you? Sure doesn’t look safe to me!

Gotta wonder if someone shorted something out and just ran off without telling anyone or if this is just magically happening on it’s own.

Given that we had another fire alarm go off this morning (we tend to have one every 3-5 weeks it seems), maybe we have some things to be worried about.

I’m pleased to say that this has been a good weekend. We went out on Friday with some friends and on Saturday Nick, Pat and Morgan came up and we went to see Labyrinth at the Brattle. Today we chilled out. I cleaned up my car while Corinne made some chocolate chip cookies. Mmmm… cookies.

In the later hours I’ve been doing little more than watching non-stop Discovery Channel in HD. The Planet Earth series that they’re in the midst f are simply amazing. I’m also rather infatuated with the Sunrise Earth series that’s on earlier.

We’ll be up in Maine next weekend for Easter. Should be fun, even if we’ll spend at least 8 hours in the car over 2 days. Blech. Ah well. Then sometime after that I’ll be putting the soft top on my jeep. I have two side rails that I ordered last week that should be showing up in a few days that I’ll put on the jeep as soon as I have some good weather to lay on the ground for a bit.

No complaints on my end.

I just remembered a weird dream I had last night… well, a part of it anyway.

The part that I just remembered was that at one point, I was scratching my ear lobe. Sometimes it just gets a bit dry and I give it a quick scratch and t’sall good. But in my dream, I scratched a bit and it stayed itchy. So I just kinda took off my lobe to scratch it.

At that point, I was holding onto my lobe and plug detached from my head. It wasn’t bleeding, it was just the small “tube” of skin that’s my ear lobe that circled around my wooden plug perfectly. Almost donut-ish.

After a minute or two I then realized that my lobe wasn’t on my ear any more and I started wondering how I’d be able to get it back on. I didn’t think about the fact that I’d somehow taken it off without ripping or cutting it at all.

That’s about where my recollection of the dream stops.

How screwed up is that?

Been a bit over two weeks since my last update. Whoops.

Last weekend I went and saw The Host. I liked it. I enjoyed the subtle commentary on Americans and a fun monster that wasn’t bogged down in the “over-scienceing” that many recent movie monsters are subject to.

Yesterday was a bit disappointing. I went to get screened for lasik and I’m not a candidate for it. Ah well – I’ll just stick to contacts. I just tend to get myself psyched up for things and have a hard time letting go once they don’t pan out.

On the geek front, I got Windows Media Center installed on my laptop and I’ve been hoking it up to my TV and streaming content from my main PC onto my TV. Not having to burn DVDs is real nice. On top of playing video, I’m also able to get all of my music and pictures on there as well. It looks great.

Things have certainly settled back into a normal routine since Maui. I really don’t have any complaints.

Saw 300 at the 12:15 showing last night.

All I have to say is that it was an awesome movie. I’ll certainly be seeing it again in the theaters and despite getting to bed at 3 and up at 8:30, it was worth it.

Get there when you can.

I wanted to write up a bit of a vacation rundown – as much for me as for anyone else.

• Thursday 2/22: We got in a bit before 6:00p and didn’t do much. We got our snorkel gear and other odds and ends before heading to dinner.
• Friday 2/23: Friday was a slow day. We were up early due to the 5 hour difference and just did some snorkeling in the morning at Napili, got some lunch and relaxed that night.
• Saturday 2/24 – Sunday 2/25: We got up early on Saturday and headed over to the island of Lanai and camped out overnight. I wrote about the interesting return trip a few days ago. I got some great underwater shots and we had a great time.
• Monday 2/26 & Tuesday 2/27: Monday and Tuesday were diving days. On Monday, we did 2 scooter dives at Makena Landing. We saw a few white tip reef sharks, a handful of turtles and some of the best underwater landscape I’ve ever seen. There is also a series of caves and swim throughs over there that are nothing short of awesome. On Tuesday, we went and dove Mala Wharf, which is a wharf that collapsed and is now a nice reef and great dive site. We were hoping on seeing some more white tips, but there were a lot of people in the water and the sharks likely wanted some more privacy. We did spot an eagle ray in the distance and I got some more awesome photos. After Tuesday morning’s dive, we headed to airport beach and did some snorkeling.
• Wednesday 2/28: We were up early (like every day) and headed over to the Nakalele blowhole. Joe was back at work today, so we had to be back to bring him. Later we got lunch, hung out in Lahaina for a while and hit up the beach a bit later on. All-in-all, it was a nice relaxing day after two days of diving and snorkeling.
• Thursday 3/1: After so much water time, we decided to head up. At the height of our travels, we got up to 10,023 feet at Haleakala. The view was mostly cloudy, but I think I got some good pictures along the way and at the top.
• Friday 3/2: Our flight departed at 11:30p, but we still got some fun in. Friday was whale watch day, and it was a great show! Lots of babies and their mothers along with a bunch of male suitors. The pictures I took don’t do any justice to how spectacular the day was.

Surprisingly, the flight back was remarkably easy. We both slept almost the entire first leg to San Fran and then a bit more than half of the second from San Fran back to Boston. The trip was amazing – we stayed busy the entire time and got to do everything we wanted to.