I went on a bit of a shopping spree this weekend on the eve of my birthday, which happens to fall on the day of the Lord’s resurrection. Oh, and I’m named after him. Start bowing.
It started by going to Walmart with the intention to purchase a few items for my apartment up where I work. The Walmart up there sucks, and I have a small car, so buying any kind of furniture (and getting it into the apartment myself) is not going to happen minus the Bed-in-a-Box (which was no longer in the box when the box broke as I was removing it from my car, thus leaving me to carry a wrapped up, air-shrunken queen size mattress up a flight of stairs) and a small desk and computer chair.
I needed a sofa in case I have company over, and to sit on and watch TV a bit, so I purchased a futon (good in case someone needs to crash after drinking too much), which at $119 was $100 cheaper than the one where I have my apartment, and looks better. It is metal instead of wood, but I thought it was nicer than the more expensive wooden one. I then walked over and got a wood/metal-combo dining room table + chairs, which they don’t even have where I work (minus a folding card table and 4 folding, crappy chairs for the same price).
To finish off the room, I’m considering a SUMO beanbag chair, though that will wait awhile considering the price of them and the necessity of other luxuries, like a new car.
Next up was a TV. Initially I was thinking of a 42″ or 46″ flat plasma TV, to bring up to the apartment for hockey playoff and then bring it back home, until I found a 50″ plasma on sale. Needless to say, the 50″ was purchased, had to be completely removed from the box to fit in the back of the Suburban I got a ride in to Walmart to pick all this up, and also a TV stand that has nice glass shelves and the TV hangs on it. Putting together that thing was a bitch, and lifting a 102-pound TV onto it to hang wasn’t much fun either, but I managed it with Tracy, and it looks great.
Considering how big it is, I built the stand and setup the TV here and will be bringing our old one up to the apartment, which I can then leave there without any intent to cart back (until I leave the apartment, in which case it will probably go with me to the next one). Transporting a 50″ TV in a Cavalier (or, hopefully, a Firebird in the near future) is simply not feasible whatsoever.
Tracy got me a Wii for my birthday, which is pretty awesome. I’m doing a lot more with my consoles lately, and even though the Wii is very lacking in online features besides downloading some old and awesome NES games, the games I have played have been great so far (Wii Sports, Super Mario Galaxy, and Mario Kart for Wii). Playing on the 50″ was a ton of fun.
This led to us heading to BestBuy today, initially to pickup an s-video cable to hook up our laptops to the TV for reasons such as watching shows that we forgot to record on the DVR on the TV rather than a tiny laptop screen. Tracy watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles tonight and the quality was as good as watching live TV, streaming from FOX.com, so much so that I was shocked and watched 5 minutes out of disbelief. This was all streaming over WiFi as well, with no hiccups. Felt good for everything to just work without a problem for something that has a few points for errors to pop up.
While at BestBuy, I picked up an iHome alarm clock that lets my iPhone charge and become my alarm clock, which I had been wanting to get for awhile so I can combine everything into 1 (speakers for my iPhone, an alarm clock, and a charger) for the apartment. The price was a lot higher than if I bought everything separately, but I’m on a minimalist kick and intend to keep a lot of this stuff around for awhile even if I move it back into my main house once I’m done with the apartment there.
I also got a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000. This was a tough decision since it was only 4 months ago that I picked up a Logitech G15 keyboard, but a necessary one. First of all, as much as I adored seeing my CPU and RAM usage (with the 4 CPU cores broken up into different lines) on the little LED screen, that isn’t a good enough reason to keep it around because I simply do not play any games or use any programs that take advantage of the LED any longer. When I played WoW, I used it to see who would talk in Ventrilo while I had the game up, and could also switch it to see a few in-game stats on the fly if I needed to, but since I quit that went out the window. With that in mind, I also noticed I have no use for the macro keys to the side, which I probably would hit accidentally if I assigned them to do anything useful in Windows itself.
The main reason for the switch is my left wrist is starting to feel the pain coming on from typing for 20 years now, and having used an ergonomic keyboard before, it isn’t too big of a leap for me. The quick keys all over the keyboard are actually going to be pretty useful. I’m going to have to train myself to use the Back/Forward keys just under the space bar a little bit, but I have already found use for the Zoom button between the keys when I’m working in Photoshop, in which I zoom in and out extensively. I’m missing a few keys as I’m typing, but I’m sure that will correct itself the more I get used to the keyboard. I also really love the plastic addon that goes beneath the keyboard in the front, which angles it the opposite way (the top of the keyboard slopes downward). Unfortunately on my home desk, it makes it so I cannot close my keyboard tray, so I will use it only at work I guess. The wrist rest is so soft and perfectly molded that I have no issue at all with it not being detachable (I always use the included wrist rests generally anyway). I like the keyboard so much that I’m considering buying another one of these keyboards just in case this one breaks and they have ended production at that time.
Wait though, there is more. Initially I wandered over to check out cables to hook up the Wii and 360 to the HDTV. The Wii looked good enough (and isn’t really a graphics-displaying beast in the first place, as a major design feature is slacking on power in favor of innovation and style), and the 360 is going to mostly remain in my apartment for awhile, plus it seems to have an HDMI slot on the 360 itself, thus I believe (could be wrong) that I can just use the one HDMI cable I already picked up for my cable box.
From here, I wandered over to check out Wii games. I intended on getting at least Super Mario Galaxy, since it got pretty good reviews. I also didn’t get a Gamecube, and therefore didn’t play Super Mario Sunshine. Lastly, I never actually owned Super Mario 64, though I did play it quite a bit at some friends’ houses, which means I never really got the full experience of the game. Feeling deprived of Mario experiences, I had to pick it up to make some peace with myself as a gamer.
Another game I was considering was Mario Kart, which I wound up getting, along with a second wheel (already have 2 remotes/nunchucks, and the plastic wheel is only $15). After that, I got a wireless Gamecube controller for the Wii, and a “Wii Classic Controller,” in case I get a Gamecube game for any reason, and both can be used for any of the games I can purchase in the Wii store. I’m trying to get things at least in pairs as Tracy has taken an interest in playing, and I have some coworkers who I play video games with sometimes during the week (mainly Guitar Hero).
Tracy also picked up a game, Rune Factory Frontier, which is good as she is into micro-management/life simulator games as well as RPGs, which apparently the game has married nicely.
This puts the total at (minus the Wii which I did not buy):
-Futon
-Dining table and 4 chairs
-50″ plasma TV
-TV stand
-Super Mario Galaxy
-Mario Kart Wii
-Additional Mario Kart plastic wheel base
-Wireless 3rd party Gamecube controller for Wii
-Classic Controller for Wii
-Rune Factory Frontier
-iHome iPhone alarm clock w/ remote
-Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard
Oh, and a small bag of Swedish Fish that I grabbed in the BestBuy checkout line :P
I don’t even want to get into the total cost, I just want to enjoy my toys.
I also drove down 45 minutes around where I used to work at Verizon Wireless to have some pho today. Tracy came and had a grilled chicken dish, which she said was the best chicken she had ever had, along with a great dressing for the chicken and some white rice. I also ordered us two full orders of egg rolls, which at this place are about half the size girth-wise of a regular egg roll, and that comes with some fantastic fish sauce. Not only was the food great, but I was very glad that Tracy liked something new I introduced her to, especially when it is from a cuisine as different as Vietnamese from her usual tastes of southern-fried country cooking.
My birthday tomorrow will not be celebrated too much as I’ll be preparing for my trek on Monday and resting on the final day of my weekend. I have to wake up extremely early to head down to another section of Houston to pick up some documents, which means I can’t party too much Sunday night, and which also means for the first time in 7 months I will once again have to deal with rush hour traffic in Houston. While I usually do some packing and such Monday morning, all that will have to be finished by tomorrow night. Going out to dinner is still under consideration, but the Pho might suffice if restaurants are too busy.
The last thing to discuss is an awesome present I got from my Dad. He went to a Devils game on March 1st, and was in the Fire lounge at Prudential Center apparently, right near where Mike “Doc” Emrick and Glenn “Chico” Resch call the game from. He actually got them to sign the cover of the game program and personalize it (Doc called me a “Houstonian,” which is awesome even if only semi-true). To me this is right up there with anything else I got, especially because I am completely reliant on them to bring me the Devils as I can’t go to the games, and also because any real Devils fan completely appreciates this duo who is one of the best broadcasting teams across all sports. I view this as just as cool (if not a bit more nifty) than even a player autograph.
Speaking of the Devils, they will have home-ice advantage against the Hurricanes in Round 1 of the playoffs, starting Wednesday or Thursday. GO DEVILS!!!!!!
-Falaris
