mgroves

Posts Tagged ‘weekend update’

This is the Weekend Update for the weekend of June 13th – June 15th.

Missed the last Weekend Update? Check out the Weekend Update archives.

It’s been a celebratory weekend. Saturday was mine and Ali’s 5th wedding anniversary. Ali’s mom came over to watch Matthew so that Ali & I could gallivant around the city.

One of the things we did on Saturday was to visit a movie theater for the first time in over 2 years. I really wanted to see Indiana Jones, but we ended up seeing The Happening. It was a Saturday matinee show, during summer, downtown: there were only about 8 other people there and none of them made a peep. It’s a shame the lengths that we had to go through to enjoy a film.

I use the word “enjoy” loosely, because the acting in The Happening was uncomfortably bad (with the notable exception of John Leguizamo, who would have been much better in the lead role). I have to say that, unfortunately, this movie is probably M. Night’s worst effort–beating out Lady in the Water. Maybe I have to be some sort of “green” hippy to “get” it, but the antagonist in the movie (plants? the CIA? God?) was really, really poorly defined, vague, and approaching The Day After Tomorrow levels of ridiculousness. There were several characters and sequences in the movie that didn’t make any sense in a larger context. This movie could realistically be made into a 30-minute Twilight Zone episode, and probably feature better acting in that channel.

The scenes of mass suicide were gruesome, chilling, and very, very effective. However, there wasn’t much else to enjoy. I don’t think it deserves the dreadful reviews it’s getting, but that’s what happens when you kill a film critic in your movie.

Er, so, I didn’t mean this update to be a movie review.

Sunday was Father’s Day. My first as a father. Ali cooked up a really, really nice meal with slow-cooked brisket, red potatoes, honeyed butter rolls, and creme brulee. I keep telling her than I’m not her father, but her feast did not relent. My son Matthew, on the other hand, didn’t do anything or give me any presents for father’s day. So much for gratitude!

I picked up Orange Box this weekend in anticipation of some Team Fortress 2 action, as well as to finally own the 2007 game of the year: Portal. If you haven’t played it yet, go get it! Now!

I start my last quarter of school tomorrow.

That is all.

This is the Weekend Update for the weekend of May 30th to June 1st.

Missed the last Weekend Update? Check out the Weekend Update archives.

One of the busiest, most stressful, hectic, and nerve-wracking periods of my life has come to a close.

This academic quarter will be officially over when I take a very low-stress final exam on Monday. The worst I can do in the class is a B+, and taking the exam can’t make it any worse. The grade is still out on my other class, but I’m sure it will be fine. These two classes were challenging in different ways, exacerbated by the other goings-on. This is not me complaining, this is just the truth.

My son is approaching 2 months old. He is doing well. People keep saying he’s a good-looking baby and that he looks like me: these statements seem mutually exclusive, but maybe they are just being nice.

Now that school is reduced to a single quarter with 4 credit hours, I have no problem spending time working on the lawn. I put down some weed and feed, cleaned things up a little bit, and put together a planter for Ali’s new herb garden (hellooooo fresh cilantro). Soon I will be mowing the yard again, after 2 years of not touching a lawnmower!

Some of Ali’s family has been up from Houston for about a week or so. This makes Ali want to move to Houston, but as regular readers know, Houston really isn’t for me. They made donuts:

Very tasty.

The Reds are doing very good right now, thanks in part to the call-up of Jay Bruce, who was minor league player of the year last year. That’s of the entire minor leagues, not just the Reds’ farm system. He is batting like .600 with two home runs, two stolen bases, a pile of RBI’s, etc. etc…after playing 6 games. Ken Griffey, Jr. is one home run away from 600 total career home runs. If you want to see some baseball history, tune in to watch the Reds over the next week or so, if for no other reason than to see one of the greatest of all time.

So, that’s it, I guess. Blog posts should pick up here. I haven’t really heard from minywheats much, but I know he said he would send some updates for me to post. Keep an eye out for those.

This is the Weekend Update for the weekend of May 2nd to May 4th.

Missed the last Weekend Update? Check out the Weekend Update archives.

This week was ridiculously hectic, and ending it with a few hours at the bowling alley for my employer’s annual bowling outing felt a little bizarre. It’s like being in Saving Private Ryan for 7 days and then spending the 8th day in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (maybe not a good metaphor, because the Chocolate Factory wasn’t exactly sunshine and sandwiches if you know what I mean). Things are a lot slower this weekend, which always makes me feel like a louse or that I’m forgetting to do something, but all the homework and reading is done, all the emails are answered, and things are in generally good order. The toast is diapered, the baby is buttered, and everyone’s happy.

We obtained several movies that we have yet to watch: Knocked Up, 27 Dresses, The Bucket List, and There Will Be Blood. Guess which one I picked!!

There’s this cool thing that you might have heard of if you are a programmer: MVC, or model-view-controller; it is a programming “pattern”, that has really interested me lately. It’s been around for a while, but Microsoft is introducing it to the .NET framework, and early indications are that it’s very, very cool. I don’t know much about it, and I’ve only recently been paying attention to it, but it’s the type of thing that every web developer in the world could be using in the next year or so. But also note that the MFC is considered MVC, and my experience with MFC has never been positive. So…we’ll see.

Matthew is doing great, and Ali and I are continuing to update MatthewKGroves.com with news, pictures, and even video.

I’ll leave with you a quote from William Tecumseh Sherman (fellow Lancaster-ian) that I ran across this weekend:

“War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over”

This is the Weekend Update for the weekend of March 4th to March 6th.

Missed the last Weekend Update? Check out the Weekend Update archives.

mgroves.com will be on a brief hiatus this week, as my wife and I welcome our son Matthew to the extrauteral world. I will spend my blogging time at MatthewKGroves.com instead.

If you aren’t interested in reading about my son, here are some other blogs that I would recommend reading in the meantime:

• Wobbleshaft – Dave was dormant for a while, but he’s back to blogging regularly.
• EconLog – pretty much everything I blog about economics is just a summary/restatement of what Kling and Caplan are writing about, so you can skip the middleman this week.
• Unfettered Blather – This blog is very similar to mgroves in topics: gaming, politics, entertainment, culture, etc. The main difference is that Jason puts a lot of time and thought into his posts.

This is the Weekend Update for the weekend of March 28th to March 30th.

Missed the last Weekend Update? Check out the Weekend Update archives.

I got some practice for being up at all hours of the night this weekend as I paid another visit to the Augsburg Fortress warehouse sale (see also: Weekend Update from last time) where I procured mass quantities of shirts. I was so cold, bored, and exhausted, I think I shall welcome a screaming child in a warm house.

I managed to take a few pictures of the place and the line of people. As before, there were about 100-200 people in line, which formed slowly from about 4:30am until 8:00am open.

That’s the building I stared about for about 3 hours. I did get to overhear a lot of fascinating conversations amongst the various priests and ministers and seminary students in the line. Speaking of which:

People come from all over for this sale. Some guys near me in line were from Toledo, and some of the students were from New Jersey, I think. After standing in line for almost 3 hours, I spent 10 minutes inside grabbing items and paying for them. Seems so anticlimatic once it’s over.

I played some more Lost: Via Domus this weekend. I’ve been trying really, really hard to overlook the flaws and be positive about this game, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the game is absolute unplayable garbage. It tries to be a a point-n-click adventure game, an action game, a puzzle game, and a TV show all at once, and fails miserably at everything. After wandering through dark caves with limited light sources for over 20 minutes, I finally realized that I wasn’t enjoying myself in the least. The game is an abusive relationship, much like the show itself, but without the redeeming qualities.

And finally, tomorrow is the Cincinnati Reds Opening Day! It’s also entirely conceivable that it could be my son’s birthday, so keep an eye out at MatthewKGroves.com for the latest news. In any case, tomorrow is an important day that I am looking forward to. The Reds look good this season, and are projected to do very well.

This is the Weekend Update for the weekend of March 21st through March 23rd (Easter weekend).

Missed the last Weekend Update? Check out the Weekend Update archives.

Happy Easter, everyone!

My wisdom teeth remain removed.

While I’m not immobile, I have spent a lot of this weekend applying ice to my face. I’ve spent a lot of time watching TV and playing video games, including the Lost: Via Domus game that Jonny lent me. I played the first “episode” of the game, and if every episode is this short, the game can’t be more than 8 hours long tops.

Ali has taken good care of me, keeping me on schedule for medications and feeding me well. I think she will make a fine mother. Speaking of which, you should check out our son’s website at MatthewKGroves.com for updates and the latest news and pictures. I’ve set up a Twitter feed and Flickr tag set so that I’m able to keep everyone updated just using my phone.

Has anyone seen these LaCie external network hard drives? I’m wondering if I can’t hook it up to my network, save DivX/XviD/etc files to it, and then watch them on my Xbox 360 via USB.

I watched Red Dawn, which Jonny recommended. It is a terrible, terrible movie with a ridiculous premise. Basically, imagine if John Hughes and John Wayne collaborated on a war movie. The premise is that the US is invaded (by communists) and a group of high-schoolers turn into guerilla freedom fighters. I can’t think of many movies where the U.S. is invaded on such a scale, and after watching this movie it’s easy to see why. I liked Free Enterprise better.

The Groves house switched to WOW Cable for our internet and TV this week in order to use a discount through OSU and the already lower WOW prices to save around 30% on our cable. The internet seems a little screwy, as we have to refresh 1 or more times it seems like every time to get a page to load. Probably something with the ARP cache or router or DNS or something, but I haven’t figured it out yet, but I think I’ve had this problem in the past so it’s just a matter of time. If you are interested in switching to WOW, let me know and I can get us both $25 for referring you.

In addition to the money we saved on cable, I also learned that my wisdom teeth bill can be stretched at 0% interest over 18 months instead of 12. Along with the cable, this frees up about $57 a month in our budget (give or take), which is very nice.

Well, I’m about to go on the Central Ohio easter tour, so I’m putting this Weekend Update up a little early. Eat a bunch of chocolates for me.

This is the Weekend Update for the weekend of March 14th through March 16th.

Missed the last Weekend Update? Check out the Weekend Update archives.

What do you get when you cross a howler monkey, Indiana Jones, and Michael Jackson?

You get this video. The person “singing” is none other than mgroves.com’s own minywheats, so enjoy.

Look for a cameo appearance from my adorable niece as a backup singer.

That’s pretty much what happened this weekend. Also, I now have the largest collection of music based video games in North America.

One other note: all those videos that I painstakingly edited and uploaded for the Best of Futurama series? Yeah, most of them have been removed. Sheesh! Well, I still have the originals, so I will try to get them uploaded someplace else before the next DVD is released.

Missed the last Weekend Update? Check out the Weekend Update archives.

What a boring weekend!

I can’t go anywhere because of this blasted snow. All I’ve done is work on my paper for class and play Mario 64 (which I downloaded from the Virtual Console because I was so bored).

Here’s another picture. This is the most snow I’ve seen in a long while.

This is the Weekend Update for the weekend of February 15th through February 17th.

Missed the last Weekend Update? Check out the Weekend Update archives.

Friday was my youngest sister’s 16th birthday party. Oh, but it was ridiculous. A lot of that repetitive, pedestrian club music that the kids seem to like. Let me just go on record and say that “Sold-juh Boy” is perhaps the worst song ever recorded.

Soulja Boy up In dis ho
Watch Me Lean And Watch Me Rock
Super Man Dat Ho
Then Watch Me Crank Dat Robocop
Super Fresh, Now Watch Me Jock
Jockin’ On dem Hatas Mane

Okay, fine, but what it actually sounds like is “flibba wollsa taark kashyyyk, wad me win id wad me ro, supahmandatho, hurrby q’apla so po”

For more information about Souljah Boy, please watch this video.

I spent a lot of time on homework this weekend. I’ve got exams and papers coming up on the schedule like nobody’s business.

I installed a new shower head last week, but it was leaking like crazy and never really looked right, so I took it back and bought a different one. The plumbing gene does not run in my family, and I’m no exception. However, the Moen shower head installed in literally 30 seconds and even came with it’s own thread-seal-tape stuff. I highly recommend them.

I played a lot of NiGHTS for Wii this weekend (it’s been shelved for a while because of Super Mario Galaxy). I have to say that the more I play this game, the more I agree with the mediocre reviews that the game got. Unlike the Saturn version, this game tries to be too many things. Instead of just solid, unique NiGHTS gameplay, you also get some ‘vehicle’ levels and platforming levels that don’t even involve NiGHTS. The cinematics and story are kinda creepy, sappy, and make me uncomfortable (like the Elebits story). However, I think the potential is there for a real break-out sequel that’s comparable in quality to the original if Sonic Team learns from their mistakes. And don’t get me wrong–the plain old NiGHTS levels are great fun.

This is the Weekend Update for the weekend of January 25th through January 27th.

Missed the last Weekend Update? Check out the Weekend Update archives.

Ali & I spent a lot of time this weekend “catching up” on movies. We watched Cloverfield, I Am Legend, and Juno. As I type this, Ali is watching 27 Dresses, a movie that I refuse to watch on the grounds that it might kill me.

Cloverfield was pretty good. I Am Legend didn’t seem to have a lot to offer beyond other zombie movies like 28 Days and what not, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Juno is a movie that is just sopping wet with clever dialog. This movie is about and indy and pretentious as anything else. The soundtrack can be very trying, but it probably won’t get on your nerves until the very last scene.

As for 27 Dresses, well, the less said about it the better.

I watched all these movies courtesy of the new DivX/XviD capability of the Xbox 360, which I couldn’t get to work before. The problem turned out to be completely my fault, but I think I shall also blame it party on the usuability faults of the Xbox 360 dashboard, which I have railed against in the past.

I read this incredibly awful case for a marketing class. It’s an HBS case, which are usually bearable, but this one was just tripe. It’s about this ridiculous Dutch consulting company that’s so bohemian, it makes Apple look like Philip Morris. (Chew on that metaphor for a while, and if you don’t enjoy it, please return the unused portion). Anyway, the main problem with it is that there’s about 1 page of interesting stuff in with about 5 pages of bunk. I don’t know, it’s probably fine, but it put me in a foul mood for whatever reason.

Okay, now I just watched Superbad, which is very much like Super Troopers (especially the two cops), except much more vile. It had some very good laughs.

Now I’m about to watch Spiderman 3. Nothing but movies and homework this weekend.