Christmas was great for us this year - we saw all but one of our extended family members on both sides - we were in East Lansing, Jackson, and Concord for various gatherings and it was nice to see everyone.
New Year's Eve found out us out on the town with some friends at Aubree's Pizza, then back to the friends' house for Wii games. The Wii is a really neat system, it's a video game where your physical actions (not what button you press) dictate what happens on the screen. For example, to play the bowling game, you hold the game controller and make a bowling motion with your arm, as if you were rolling an actual ball. Your motions are translated by the game, and the ball on the screen rolls as if you rolled it. If your arm arcs too far to the left, the ball will roll to the left. If you move your arm fast, the ball rolls fast. There are other games, such as baseball and tennis, which require you to make baseball bat or tennis racket swinging motions (backhand, forehand, and serves.) The seven year-olds beat me, naturally, but that doesn't count because I'm old and creaky, and they've had a chance to practice.
Last night, J made prime rib. This isn't something we normally have, but she knows how to make it and it was wonderful. We gobbled it up, along with sweet potatoes, sugar snap peas, and Hawaiian rolls.
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I got a BlackBerry smartphone from work last week. Work is paying for it because they want to notify me if a problem occurs on a server that runs the software I'm currently working on. There are now four of us that have phones set up to do this, so at least one of us is likely to notice the phone ringing and be able to address problems. The BlackBerry is OK; it's not a great phone, and it's not a great web browser or email reader. It does a lot of things, but none of them particularly well. It will be good enough for what I need it for, and it is now my primary cell phone - if you need my number let me know. I'm getting used to it, and since I have plenty of other ways of reading email and browsing the web, it's not that important that this phone do those well.
The first day I got it I was at my desk learning how it works, and it surprised me by ringing. It was Americredit, looking for someone named Robert. Apparently Robert has some credit problems. On New Year's Eve I got a text message from someone telling me he or she loved me and didn't want to end the year without saying so. Robert leads an interesting life.
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We had a computer problem on Dec 24. J told me the computer wasn't starting properly (our new computer, the one we bought in November.) I used our laptop to browse the web and found the answer: take the case off the computer, take out the memory, unplug the hard drive, plug back in the memory and hard drive, and start the computer again. I was relieved we wouldn't have to return to the Geek Squad. They're nice people and all, but we don't need to see them again so soon.
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It's hard to describe how this bridge works, so you'll just have to look at the pictures. It looked like a joke to me at first, but it's real.
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Each year, Dave Barry, whose writing style is often shamelessly copied on The DEB Log, writes an annual yearly wrap-up which always makes me laugh. This year's wrap-up is here.
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Michigan State plays its bowl game tonight at 9:00. If you've been reading the sports section, you'll know that about a dozen players on the team were recently suspended or kicked off the team for an altercation on campus a few weeks ago. More recently, the coach of Texas Tech, their bowl opponent, was fired for mistreating a player who had a concussion. I think both schools should just suit up some of the fans who come to the game and let them play so they can sort out their various team issues.
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