Look at me! I'm dancin! I'm dancin'!

Greetings everyone! All right, fine, you caught me. I'm not dancing. Maybe next time...

Quite a day today. First, I went shooting with Mr. Derr as promised! Got up at 7:30 am... earlier than normal... I did go to bed at midnight to try and compensate, but I ended up rolling around restlessly until after 1am anyway. So we drove to the shooting range near Lake Wolford, and Mr. Derr broke out his .45 handgun. It was beautiful.

Here's Derrick taping the target sheet up, in preparation for our merciless assault. We set the target out to the 15 yard mark on the range, which is not a bad distance. I would have liked it out a bit farther; maybe next time...

Here's Derrick loading up the clips. He brought 100 rounds of .45 ammo, which he said is very scarce at the moment. I guess there's an ammo shortage across the country. Some serious Obama-angst-fueled hoarding going on, apparently.

There's Mr. 45 himself. I liked the feel of it. It had weight to it, and nice kick. Though the kick might be normal, I don't know... I think this is the third time I've ever been shooting... the other two times were a .22 rifle, and a 9mm handgun. Never fired a .45 before. Except virtually, in Battlefield 2. Actually, I think the handguns in BF2 were all 9mm...

Look at me! I'm shootin'! I'm shootin'! I had ear plugs in, as well as those mouse ears. It was still loud. I still can't get over how flippin' loud it is to fire a gun. CRACK! It goes right through you. Makes me think of the action movies where guys are firing guns all over the place, like it's no big deal. That scene from Pulp Fiction comes to mind, where Travolta and Jackson are in that apartment, and everyone is firing their weapons at each other, then just kinda shrug and walk out. I'd be flinching and wincing all over the place - those suckers are loud! No wonder people can't think straight when those crazy gunmen show up at schools and start pluggin' away... I used to think "man, why didn't someone just rush the guy and tackle him or something?" I don't think that anymore. As loud as they are while standing behind or beside someone, I can't imagine the volume when the muzzle is pointed at you...

OK, enough, sorry...

That shows an idea of the distance. About 45 feet.

There's the damage. Most of the rounds were fired by yours truly, but a few of the scattered shots were Derrick's. I put three 10-round clips at the big bottom target, and one clip at the one just above it, and the final clip at the one above and left of it. Not bad for a newbie, I think. After 5 clips, my arms were starting to shake, so I thought firing any more would just be a waste of ammo. Arms waving around, I won't hit anything that way.

Anyway, we were there for maybe an hour. It was terrific fun, I loved every minute of it. If you'll pardon the pun, I had a blast. Derrick had a rifle, but didn't bust it out. Maybe next time.

Went into the rug shop afterwards, worked on some graphics odds and ends. It got rainy in the afternoon.

Came home and got upset when I saw that the Left 4 Dead four-pack just went on sale today... we finally got the 4 pack purchased (after a hassle) two days ago, at what I thought was a very reasonable $67, which broke down to about $15 per person. Imagine my chagrin when the four-pack went on sale today for only $22. Dude, that's a $45 discount! If I had just waited another day or so, I would have saved a bundle! What a cheek-slapping bummer! So I was miffed. I still needed to buy one last copy for Laythe, which I was going to buy yesterday when the price was $22.50... but today the price is $7.50... also a crazy discount. So at least I saved some dough on that. I even bought a copy for my good pal Joe, since a deal like that needs to be taken thorough advantage of. I hope they do the same for the sequel soon...

I hope the LAN party turns out better than this one...

Then I went to the weekly prayer meeting at Pastor Stan's house, which was awesome, in ways which would take too long to elaborate on. Let's just say personal discoveries were made, prayers and repentance were applied with force, tears fell, strength obtained, some hope restored... hey, great way to end a day. Now if I can just hold onto it instead of slipping back into "business as usual"...

File this next pic under "What the?"

I'm done. And so is the year. I hope you all enjoy your New Years Eve. As I said earlier, I won't be stopping the blog completely, but I will likely taper back on how often I update. Probably a few times a week, when I feel I have something to share. Otherwise, I'm going to spend the time/energy on my writing and my website.

It's been a great year. Learned a lot about myself. Gathered new eFriends. Provided a little entertainment and a little controversy. Tried some stuff - some of it worked, some of it didn't. I'm glad I was able to do it. Thank you all for your encouragement and support.

See ya in the new year.,

Dave

End of the year blahs in full force. Only one cure: LAN party... well, actually there are other cures, but I can't go there...

Rug Shop Day today. A weird one... was kinda listless today. I got some stuff done, though. My blood/caffiene ratio must be too low or something. I may need a frap the size of a human head to restore my equilibrium...

The good news is that Wednesday morning I'm going to go shooting weaponry with Mr. Derr. I went shooting with him a few years back - we shot his 9mm handgun. That was great fun, actually. He apparently has a .45, and a rifle and a shotgun to play with this time. He'll make a man out of me yet!

That didn't sound right...

He's gonna be here far earlier than I usually wake up... I need to get to bed, like, soon. Need to be well rested so I can show those targets who's the boss. Hey, maybe I'll bring my camera along and get some trophy pics... dang, I hope I remember... sounds like great blog fodder to me...

Eldest Daughter went to see the Sherlock Holmes film tonight, and came back with a good report. May have to actually check it out in a few months on DVD...

I gotta get one of these...

Why? Umm.... because?

I'm making my master list of things I'm going to try to change and/or do differently in the new year. It will mostly cover diet, exercise and writing, but it might expand a bit more than that. I might have things I want to do daily, weekly and monthly. Hey, why not? I'm kind of a stats hound, so maybe I can set things up so I can track the numbers and produce a series of stunning graphs and pie charts that you can print out and laminate, as gifts to give your loved ones next Christmas! See? See how smart I am!

Besides, if I get in better shape, then maybe Wifey will love me again... if that doesn't work, my next strategy will involve tattoos and body piercings... and if that fails, then I'll try to impress her by learning several languages... that way when we argue, she'll have no clue what I'm saying! MUAHAHAHA!!!! Victory will be mine! The power! The POWEERRR!!!!1! If all that fails, I'll revert to farting her into submission...

I think I've decided that Help! is my favorite Beatles album. Except for the song Act Naturally... Ringo should not sing. Ever. In related Boring Beatles News, NetFlix has decided to send me Disc 4 of the Beatles Anthology, skipping right over Disc 3. Maybe they know something I don't... it seems a bit odd to send them out of order...

Wow, a bunch of hot air today. Sorry. No funny videos to post. I'm running the risk of ending the year with a whimper. Maybe tomorrow's post (#365!) will be more interesting. Until then, have phun.

Greetings! Drip drip drip.... 2009 dribbles to a close...

I almost bought a new iMac tonight after work... *this* close. If it wasn't for a comedy of errors, I'd have one now...

Oh, man, I'm going to do it... I'm going to explain what happened. Here, lemme drop a warning first...

WARNING: The following tale is ridiculously boring. Be sure you are well-caffeinated before attempting to read the next three paragraphs. If you feel light-headed or nauseous at all while reading, stop immediately and take several deep breaths. Then fix yourself some hot cocoa.

iCame, iSaw, iLeft Empty-handed: A Technological Near-Miss by Dave Wagner III
----------------------------------------------
I went to the Apple Store at the mall; it was packed. I wanted to see if I qualified for their 12 month 0% financing for an iMac, which I determined to be the smartest way to go. If I'm going to make a tech purchase, it needs to be before the end of the year, for tax purposes. They told me to use one of the floor model computers to access the online store, and apply online. I was reluctant to do it, entering all my personal info right there, with a mob of people wandering by around me. I did it anyway.

Of course, when I hit "apply" the computer thought for a while, then gave me an error. The sales person said I'd have to do it again. I didn't want to. They said I could apply at home, and if accepted, print out the acceptance text and bring it in the store, and any clerk could help me. I went home to apply.

Applied and was approved. Printed it out, went to the store. The sales person was wrong. I couldn't apply at home and bring in the printed record - I had to do it in store. Now to use my newly-approved financing, I have to wait until the card arrives in the mail, which will be after Jan 1. Oh well. When the card arrives, I will close and terminate the account. After the first does me no good. No new Mac. They tried to call the credit card company to see if I could get approval to use it tonight, but they said no. No card, no sale. If I'd done the applying in store, it would have been easy.

Wow... that story is definitely in the running for the most boring thing I've written in the blog this year. But it was frustrating and a bummer and on my mind, so I wrote it anyway!

I got my work rig back from Vye, and it is working again, and clean, and my files are all safe. But I have to reinstall all my programs, and the DVD drive won't open anymore! It's not Vye's fault, of course... it has been giving me grief the last couple months, and now it has stopped working altogether. How can I install stuff if I can't put the discs in there? That's part of the reason I thought I'd pull the trigger on a new iMac... I want to consolodate desk space, and replacing my old iMac and dual-monitor work rig with one new iMac would be smart, especially since the one iMac will run both Windows and the mac OS.

O_o

I just topped the previous boring story with something even more boring, didn't I... there's only one solution... a Starbucks/Star Wars mash-up picture...

If you aren't familiar with the original trilogy, that one just sailed over your head, sorry. I still love you. In fact, I love you deeply! All of you! I'm just a well of love - the real mushy, saccharine kind! Aren't you lucky!

Wifey has agreed to going out on a date on New Years Eve. Nothing like putting off the annual date to the very last possible night, eh? lol We may go see Avatar... but I'm not sure I'm up for 3 hours of 3D... my head hurts just thinking about it. I should save the time and money, and just hit myself in the head with a ball-peen hammer...

I've always wanted to do this...

Hmm... he was kinda motionless after the impact... I assume he was ok, but he didn't seem to be moving... his friends thought it was funny enough...

Got a book for Christmas from Stepdad called Lone Survivor, by Marcus Luttrell. "The eyewitness account of Operation Redwing and the lost heroes of Seal Team 10." Apparently, it's an amazing tale of survival by a Navy Seal who lost his team during a mission in Afghanistan in 2005. Looks like quite a tale, I'm looking forward to reading it.

Dang.

Not much to say after that. Gonna go think now... thanks for your patience.

Good grief, someone please take away this can of mixed nuts... please, or I'll regret it big time... moderation? Me? Bah! Shovel it in! That's my motto!

Church double-header today. Double portion. Hey, shovel it in, eh? Skeleton crew tonight... maybe 20 people, tops. I brought my iMac in with me so I could work on the camp slideshow while I was duping DVD's of the morning service and last week's Christmas play. I'm happy to say that all the camp pictures and video clips are on the timelime and adjusted for timing and zoom... now all that remains is to move a couple pics around, and find music. Home stretch. After, what, 6 months? Sheesh! They'll never ask me to help at camp again!

I told Abbie I'd teach her how to do the video/photo editing, so next year, it's all her! Go Abbie go!

[Dave munches more mixed nuts]

Dangit, I thought I asked someone to take these away from me!

That pic is for Joseph. He'll get it! John too, perhaps... but that's probably it... sorry...

OK, well, yeah, about the Christmas lights...

Here's the caption I found with the pic on Fail Blog...

Good news is that I truly out did myself this year with my Christmas decorations. The bad news is that I had to take him down after two days. I had more people come screaming up to my house than ever. Great stories. But two things made me take it down.

First, the cops advised me that it would cause traffic accidents as they almost wrecked when they drove by.

Second, a 55 year old lady grabbed the 75 pound ladder almost killed herself putting it against my house and didn’t realize that it was fake until she climbed to the top (she was not happy). By the way, she was one of the many people who attempted to do that. My yard couldn’t take it either. I have more than a few tire tracks where people literally drove up my yard.

Funny stuff, methinks. Of course, this lighting arrangement is much more my speed....

Easy to install, easy to take down.

OK, one more Funny Picture, and then I'm out...

LOL, I'm sorry. I can't help but laugh, forgive me...

OK, I'm going to go slay some zombies, and make a gameplan for tomorrow. Until then, remember to kill the lights and set the alarm on your way out...

OK, time to put on a Happy Face and pull myself out of the downward spiral! Honestly, when I give it a good think, I know I have far more to be thankful for than to complain about, so I think I'll just punch the Christmas blues in the teeth and move forward. Most of the things I feel compelled to complain about fit squarely under the "you made your bed, now sleep in it" category, so I have no room to complain.

That having been said, let me proceed...

Went to the mall today, just to get out of the house. I have NO IDEA what I was thinking. It was literally a mad house. I despise crowds to begin with - I have no clue why I thought today would just be a nice, mellow day at the mall, where I could grab a quick bite at the food court, perhaps a frap or macchiato at Starbucks, and browse around GameSpot and the Apple store for a while. My family was already there, so I went over, as if I had good sense. Mistake. A zoo! I lasted about 5 minutes before I ran screaming for the door... all I kept think while riding the crammed escalator was "I wonder how much of the air I'm breathing right now is other people's gas?"

I know, no one thinks stuff like that but me, I'm sorry. Hey, if I had one of those "pooter" things, I could have had some fun. Maybe next time...

My neck is out of whack. I figured I'd wait til after Christmas to go see my chiropractor. Wifey made the call for me, as I prepared to head for the car. I stopped when she said the recording claimed they'd be closed until January 4! Dang! I'll be living on ibuprofen until then, I suppose... it usually has to get pretty bad before I'll go to see him... because once the family hears I'm going, they all want to go too... then the visit goes from a reasonable $40 to a much less reasonable $160... it's not that I don't want them all to be all aligned and such - and it's not like the good doctor overcharges, he doesn't... he's worth every penny. But when pennies are tight, some things have to wait. Ah, well... sore necks suck, but there's worse problems.

Here's a cool gallery of Star Wars Lego pics...

The guy recreated several scenes from Empire using legos... from the last pic in the gallery, it looks like at least some of them were shot with the legos in a tank of water. Cool. The article is on Gizmodo, so it's good.

Here's another link to an article about a painter named Marc Simonetti, who has painted some awesome pictures based on GRRM's Song of Ice and Fire series. Here's one called Tyrion in King's Landing.

I know some of y'all are out to the movies this holiday season, seeing Avatar and/or Sherlock Holmes, and others I know nothing about. Good on ya, I wish I was going with you. Best I can do is post trailers, so here's one I'm sure you've all seen by now - Ridley Scott's Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe. Looks good.

Did I post this clip already? If so, I apologize for redundancy. And while I'm at it, I should also apologize for redundancy...

Best Book I Read in 2009: The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss
Best Movie I Saw in 2009: The Fall
Best Song I Heard in 2009: Revelation by Third Day
Favorite Blog: Rememorandum
Favorite Procrastinated Project of 2009: The camp slideshow
Favorite Christmas Present: Beatles Remastered Collection (thanks mom!)
Favorite Game of 2009: Torchlight

Speaking of Torchlight, you all now have no excuse not to buy it from Steam... they lowered the price to $4.99 until January 3! You MUST buy this game!

I kinda miss going snowboarding in Tahoe. Maybe some year we'll resurrect the trip again, when enough years pass to help us forget the hassles that go along with it, and all we remember are the good things...

But I have the upcoming LAN party to look forward to! It's going to be epic, especially if I can see to it that everyone is hooked up with Left 4 Dead... great game. That, and Warcraft 3 and UT3 should set us up right. I *think* we're also going to get some console gaming going, which means other people can pop in and join the partay for a while, if they wanted... normally, in order to attend, you need to bring a PC... but if there's a console there, then that opens things up a bit more. We'll see. It would be awesome to get some Rockband going...

I think that's it for me for the day.

Hey, what was your favorite Web Feature of my blog this year? Let me know, and I'll try to do it again before the end of the year. Do any of you remember the video blogs I used to make, about favorite movie scenes of mine? That was fun. Maybe the web comic. Or the Todayve In History. Or the Movie Quote contest? Or something else...? The fiction bits, perhaps? The poetry (lol)?

I'm done. Thanks for your friendship(s) and your encouraging words. Until tomorrow, remember, sometimes I do what I want to do. The rest of the time, I do what I have to.