Taking a two week break from the blog / news etc. A few blogs ago I talked about a possible lead on a job ending my 16 month unemployment run, longest i've ever been unemployed. Anyway it's not a permanent gig, they're bringing me on for two weeks as a contractor and will renew for two weeks at the end of each two week period until they decide to make a permanent offer or fill the position with recruiting someone else. So basically I need to be totally focused , no screwing around at work And we'll see what happens from there. I'll probably adjust to doing the blog in the evenings for the next little while instead of the morning.
Anyway off to 'work' tomorrow, i have to get up at the ungodly hour of 5:30am... who the hell gets up at 5:30? It's inhumane !
So I went out ths past Thursday with a very nice woman. She was smart, educated, well spoken, funny... I thought this was going to be the one but I was wrong. I think I may have misread some signals when we first met. That night she was definitely giving off some let's be friends vibes. Ah well. She was nice and I did like hanging out with her so that was cool. I don't mind being friends. I just wish it was going to be something else.
Occassionally I get asked about the name Habu (Hah-boo) and if it has any meaning. It really doesn't have a specific meaning, but here's where the name came from.
Once upon a time, (the late 1980's to be exact) courtesy of Uncle Sam's Misguided Children I was happened to be on the island paradise of Okinawa for some fun in the sun. The island is home to a poisonous snake called a Habu. I always liked the name. It sounded cool.
The Habu is a viper about 4 feet long, green and black. Incidentally, I learned later that the SR-71 blackbirds stationed at Kadena AFB were also called Habus.
Fast foward twenty years later and I'm getting my xbox live account started. I was playing the "H" game at the time and went online to try multiplayer. I needed a gamertag and I couldn't really think of anything that I liked and I didn't want anything identifying my personal life. Habu just popped up and because I still thought it was a cool name, I put it in as my gamer tag and wouldn't you know, someone else had already claimed that name. I added the 06 just for the year and there you go; Habu06. I kept the name even though I wasn't playing multiplayer. I didn't get back into playing online until COD 4 and MW2.
I don't use the 06 so just stick with "Habu" unless for some bizzarre reason the other habu is in the same game then I guess use the 6 part.
Its easy to pronounce and every once in a while, someone will see it and I'll hear "HAAAAAAABOOOOOOOO" so apparently to some people, its also fun to say.
I'm not going to say that lawyers are the cause of all the problems in this world, but they come pretty damn close. And let me clarify. Divorce lawyers suck. All other lawyers are ok in my book.
I've been fighting for my kids for almost 4 years now. The lawyers involved do not care one wit about the kids and the pain they cause. All they want is their blood money.
I've hired another attorney who thought i have a pretty good chance at getting the kids back because their mother is so damn crazy. But he too is showing that he just wants the money and not do a damn thing to earn it. I could do a better job - but judges hate it when you go pro se and they are prejudiced against you. so you are forced to use a damn stupid divorce attorney who has zero capacity for details.
sigh...
some day in the future i just pray that i can explain to my kids that i NEVER ONCE gave up trying to fight for them and their sanity. I've drained all my resources and yet i still am going at it. My kids deserve to have a normal life despite what their mother and the court system thinks.
Their mother has borderline personality disorder. Is an alcoholic (has gotten two DUI's), has been reported to child services numerous times, has no job, is tens of thousands of dollars in debt, has no friends and makes it her number one job to keep the kids from ever talking to me or seeing me. I have a great job, friends, close all my family (and hers), can provide a great stable environment for the kids and for their future. Yet, none of this seems to make a difference to the court.
Some day the balances of justice will prevail. Maybe not tomorrow or the next or even within my lifetime, but they will prevail.
and back to my reason for the post. If lawyers for divorces were actual human beings instead of scum sucking bottom feeders, they would have one thing and one thing only as their goal. make sure the kids have the best environment to grow up in.
Gaming Budgets... Do you have one? Do you stick with it?
Both this gaming season and last gaming season, I created a gmaing budget and, for hte most part I stuck with it. I found that I was wasting lots of money on games I didn't *love*. What I found worse than losing money was losing time. I don't game as much as some (most?) of the folks on this site. If i can get 3 hours a night in I am SO lucky... but that doesn't happen too often. I'm looking at 2 hours usually. I never game Fridays, and rarely Saturday nights (unless I'm sick) and usually during the week I get somewhere between 2-4 nights in. Sometimes it's none. Considering I swear some of you are on all night, every night: my gaming time is tight. So all this translates into something from 4-12 hours in a week. Again, unless I'm sick and it's just what I want to do instead of feeling miserable with a cup of tea and a book.
So, in light of my tight time budget, I decided to not purchase games that I wouldn't have time for in order to make time for the genres and game that I would love. This means FPS games have all but gone from my library. Last year, if I remember correctly, I budgeted for Fallout 3, and Batman Arkham Asylum. I know there was one more, but I can't remember it. But after all was said and done, my man said to me... "Hun, Fable 2 has a dog... you KNOW you want it..." And since I had the time... I went against my buget. Lo and behold, I did love Fable 2. So it wasn't a waste of my time.
This year on my budget I have Mass Effect 2, Dragon's Age: Origins, Final Fantasy XIII and Spliinter Cell: Conviction as well as their respective DLC. So that means I have eaten up my budget my mid-April... and next "season" doesn't start until fall. That is it for moi.
So... how do you guys (and gals) set a gaming budget? Or do you? Is it $ that is the driver, or time? When do you create this budget? Is it like me, where I know at the start of the year what games I will purchase, or do you day "I get one game a month." and wait and see what tickles your fancy at that time?
EdIT: Dammit... I wanted to change my avatar... but my pic is too small... gotta go crop it. In the meantime, ya'll get pixelated moi
I managed to get on for a few hours last night -- before I once again got cut off by a power outage! We had just finished our pizza break, and the lights started flickering. After about 10 mins, they went off for good. The wind that had kicked up during the storm caused a branch to hit a power line and apparently blow a transformer somewhere down the line. The lights did come on after a couple of hours, but it was a pretty nervous night for Reibo and me.
What gaming there was was pretty good. It was fantastic to get together with Reibo and Matt64 again after our long drought. I was pretty sucktacular in a couple of games, but we were short 2-3 regular players during the whole session. I managed to get a lot of challenges done, tho, including one sweet Ninja Pro challenge where an enemy player literally walked into me around the corner just in time to eat a burst from my SCAR-H. Because he was close enough to kiss, it counted as a Ninja distance kill. Woot! Another sweet moment was a flash bang impact kill from 5 feet away on Favela. A dude was running up from the playground area and I was running down the stairs and thoomp! he took the grenade in the chest!
A little over 2 weeks before the Modern Warfare DLC release! Despite my many disappointments with the glitches and cheaters of MW2 multiplayer, I'm still excited, especially if a couple of my favorite Call of Duty 4 maps are revamped for MW2. Although many folks prefer only new content, I really like a mix of the old and the new. UT was always good at achieving that mix. Either Epic would have touched-up classics pre-loaded or the mapping community would whip them out in short order. After all, what's UT without Deck 17? I couldn't find video of the classic Unreal Tournament Deck 17, which was teh awesome, but here's the UT3 PC version:
Deck 17 UT3 PC Gameplay
Today's featured vid is a Throwing Knife only FFA by SeaNanners, tho he does use the melee knife twice in the game. On to the links:
Sup peeps?!? Just figured I'd take the time to thank you sumbucks for making a totally crappy day 1,000,000,000 times better thanks to an AWESOME clan night hosted by Sonic!! (hosted the room I was in)
The day before I'd made a call in to my doc. Been havin drop me to my knees heartburn and recently my stomach started to hurt kinda behind my belly button. Shit's been really buggin me. Doc's office finally calls back early am. Well he's out of the office so the nurse sends me over to Express Care(Med Assist, Minor Care....whatever you call it in your neck of the woods) They don't open till 1 so I grabs a bottle of Tums and head over to get new tires for the van...so far so good. Then the fun starts. I get to the doc right after 1 and wouldn't ya know....there's like 10 folk already ahead of me!! So I sit there....and sit there....and fuckin sit there...kids screamin....me hurtin, belchin and fartin.... for three friggin hours!! Now just a bit irritated to say the least. But....glad to finally see someone. After about 10 minutes of poking and proding the docs decide to send me to the ER because they don't have scan equipment....yada yada yada.....soooooooo.......I jumps in the van and head down to the emergency room. Told the receptionist that she should have received a call about me. Smart alec bitch says we hear that one all the time!!! Now I'm already pissed......took a deep breath and was just about to loose it when she says oh there you are....we got ya....then she turned into a nice person just like that!! Any who I gets all checked in. All the rooms are full so I get put in a waiting room where I procede to doze off and on for bout an hour. A nurse finally shows up and wants blood.........8 fucking tubes of blood!!!!GRRRRRRR......finally bout 30 minutes after that I gets in a bay.....I'll give the hospital this......they've totally rebuilt the ER.....totally state of the art. Bitch looks like some shit straight outta Star Trek!! My room had all kinda dodads and a flat screen tv!! Anyway....nurse finally comes in with two large cups of the juice ya drink before they scan ya. Tells me he's gonna start an IV to give me meds for nauesa and pain. So we're talkin and he goes to stick my left arm.....fucker can't get shit.....so he pokes and pokes till I finally yell why don't you try the other fuckin arm!!! So finally he gets the IV started. Gives me shit for nausea.....which makes me nauseaous then he says gonna give ya some morp[hin for the pain.......STOP!!!!! I didn't bring a driver. So keep the morphin....I'll be fine. After bout another hour gets in for the CAT scan. Actually went well cause they didn't find any thing major. I found out I have a thick colon....could be caused by an infection or could just be the way it is. I got pain meds, gas meds and infection meds and tto top it all off the doc did the dreaded prostate test!!!!! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.........Soooooo after about 8 hours I finally got to go home tired pissed still not feeling good and starving!!!
After eatting I get's on live for a lil clan night action with PCP and all my worries went south for a few!!!!!! Thank ya much!!!!
And we'll see what happens from there. I'll probably adjust to doing the blog in the evenings for the next little while instead of the morning.
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