Tuesday Tidbits

The streak continues! January ended, but here I am, still posting. Must be a good sign (of what, I don't know). This post is the 99th all time on Random Nerdery, which makes tomorrow's the 100th. While a small milestone for some, it's quite impressive for me. Unfortunately, that means I probably should do something interesting for post number 100. Oh, the pressure...

While I write this post, I'm updating the OS and security on my old laptop, which is a tiresome task. The 'kitchen' laptop, a cute name for the Cafe World machine my wife has upstairs, is having big issues with the wireless network connection, and I've tried a bunch of different things to fix it. As an alternative, she's going to give the older HP 'gaming laptop' a try, which is great since it's been sitting in its case for over a year now. It's not a bad machine, just old. Hopefully it has enough horsepower to run IE8, Facebook and all of the social games she's into, and if can handle that, it will be perfect.

Tonight hasn't provided me the opportunity to begin my gaming project, which is on hold until I have a free evening to compile the list of games (hopefully tomorrow, but my schedule is always subject to change). In the meantime, I have a confession to make. It's taking every fiber of my responsible being, which should never be confused with my impulsive 'devil may care' being, not to buy and play Mass Effect 2. Today while traveling back and forth between a job site and the office, I listened to two separate podcasts that did nothing but gush over the game and its story. Always the sucker for whatever is new and shiny, there's so much temptation to throw money to the wind and get it from Steam. For now, however, I'm going to be a good boy and play with the toys that I have. All bets are off when our tax return comes in, though.

There's another upside to our getting a tax return. My wife has been getting sick of fending the twins away from the baby gates we have set up around our TV and TV stand upstairs. The space in between the gates and the TV stand serves basically as a junk and food repository, which does nothing for the decor in the living room. Lately, the twins have also discovered that they can drag their little plastic chairs over to the gates, stand on them and reach over the gates for better access at what's behind. All of this has driven her to the decision that we're going to buy a new smaller LCD TV, mount it on the wall, and also mount a shelf to hold the cable box. We're considering a TV/DVD combo set, to remove the need for a DVD player upstairs. If this plan does come to pass, the current 42" TV, DVD player, receiver, surround sound speakers and XBox 360 return to the basement and their rightful place in my 'man cave.' You have no idea how excited I am about this possibly happening. I'll keep you posted on this possibility as it materializes or disappears.

Now it's off to deliver the laptop up to the lady of the house and hope it solves the wireless access issue and is powerful enough to fit her needs. All married man know this to be true: if the wife is happy, you're happy. If she's not happy, woe be to you. I know what outcome I'm wishing for. :)