Post-October wrap-up & such

So I meant to post last month, but I had an ongoing project that kept me away from doing so for the most part. What project you ask? Well, October as you know brings Halloween, which you may or may not know is my favorite holiday. And so my little way of celebrating Halloween all month long is to watch as many horror movies as I can, including a big marathon near Halloween. While there was no single big marathon to be had what with having a toddler in the house & nowhere else to go & have it (without my driving back to Dallas at least), I did succeed in watching a slew of horror films throughout the month including a few that I caught on the big screen. None of the big screen films were new, but I had not seen any of them before & two of them (Duel and Anguish) cost me $2 per ticket (the 3rd, Zombie, was $10, which combined means I still paid less than $15 to see 3 movies in a theatre...not too shabby, eh?).

And so as you may also expect from having kept up with me, I turned all my watching activity into a list. As luck would have it, I wasn't the only person on Listal who created a horror-centric list for October. So I provided links to the other people who had similar lists to mine in the sidebar of my list, & thus was able to check in on their lists throughout the month. This led to a lot of interaction among us, kept up my enthusiasm for watching horror movies, encouraged me to check out a few films that I hadn't originally planned to, and resulted in my feeling more connected to the site than I ever have before. (And for more of my thoughts on my viewing, if you're interested, you may also check out my October re-cap in my Watched in 2011 pt. 2 list.) To say I enjoyed it would be an understatement, as would be saying that I'm missing it a little. On the upside, however, I think it's safe to say we'll all be doing this again & I know I'll be looking forward to next October!

And before I move on from the subject of horror, I finally finished publishing all my lists of my favorite horror movies for each decade, all of which you can find links to from my My favorite Horror movies by decade list. Several of them were altered throughout last month, so I almost wish I'd waited to publish them until after October. But no matter.

So yeah, October was full of horror movies & not much else outside the usual working 4 nights a week & taking care of E 5 days a week. Halloween was pretty good, she & I dressed up & we visited our neighbors but didn't take her trick-or-treating. We didn't see the point of it since 1) she can't say "trick-or-treat" and 2) she can't eat candy & we don't need to eat candy for her. So instead I kept my werewolf mask nearby & put it on most of the times I answered the door to give out candy. Got some fun responses from the kiddos, and we had several of them show up...definitely seemed like more than last year, and probably our Halloween decorations in the yard helped attract them. To see some other Halloween-related photos, stop by the baby blog if you haven't lately (V does a FAR better job of keeping that one updated than I do keeping this one updated). I know somewhere there's also a video of her saying "monster!" and "mummy!" but I'm not in the mood to go searching for it right now. :P

Most recently, this past weekend was Fun Fun Fun Fest which expanded to 3 full days of music instead of the usual 2. That decision was made AFTER we bought our tickets, & we wound up not buying Friday tickets. Then when the schedule was announced I was bummed to see that the 2 bands I most wanted to see were slated to play Friday night, & seriously considered buying a ticket. Well, as it turns out it's best I didn't. You see, the 2 bands I most wanted to see were Murder City Devils & Danzig Legacy. I've seen Murder City many times, so while I was bummed about missing them it wasn't that big of a deal. Then when I found out that pitchfork.com planned to stream the entire festival anyway, I was happy when I managed to tune in for their set (and because I was home I was able to catch most of Public Enemy's set before the feed cut out for some reason). Danzig Legacy, on the other hand, sounded like a rare opportunity...Glenn Danzig tours with his current band members, the members of his pre-Danzig/post-Misfits band Samhain, and Doyle of the Misfits & does sets of material from all 3 bands. By the time I knew who Samhain & Misfits were, Danzig was on his 3rd solo album, so while it had the potential to not be worth the time/money, I figured I should catch it while I could if they were playing here. But by the time I went to bed on Friday night, I was glad that I didn't because Glenn ruined the set for everyone. Twitter posts & show reviews confirmed that Glenn probably wasn't feeling well since his voice was terrible the entire set (reviews from their previous set at Riot Fest indicate his voice was fine then, though), but because he made a big deal out of it he only had an hour-long set before park curfew forced him & his band to be silenced. Thus the crowd got Danzig & Samhain songs, but only 2 Misfits songs instead of the half-hour or so's worth they would've heard otherwise. Lame, yes? So had I gone I would've been pissed off about the money I would have wasted on the ticket. (Additionally, I was unable to watch the Danzig sets via pitchfork, as their feed for that stage had cut off & never came back up that night.)

Instead, V & I went on Saturday. We'd originally planned to take E with us, but reports of heavy dust blowing around the venue convinced V it was a bad idea. Fortunately my parents drove down to watch E, so instead we all went to lunch together & then left E with them. That meant a late arrival to the show, but E & my parents got along great (especially since they brought their 2 dogs, whom E showered with as many kisses as she could). We got down there in time to see Donald Glover of the TV show Community (one of our favorites), but hit a snag when they told V she couldn't bring one of her cameras in. Apparently they started a point-and-shoots only rule this year, so we had to walk the camera back to the car before we could go inside. Since there was no on-site parking, that wound up taking about a half hour & led to us missing his set. Bands we did see: Paint It Black, Kool Keith, Cave In, and The Damned, all of whom put on good/great shows. Heard a lot of talk about the Occupy Everything movement going on from various artists (all in support of it), and caught sight of actor Ryan Gosling who was in attendance (not a big fan of his or anything, I just thought it noteworthy that he was there). So we had a good time, though I think it's safe to say we most enjoyed being able to go out for several hours & spend time together without the little one to take care of.

Sunday I opted not to go. I decided that it would be best if I stayed home with E instead of having V's best friend watch her for us, so I told V to take her best friend instead of me. As I looked at the schedule for that day, there was only really one artist I truly cared about seeing (Henry Rollins) while V had several she wanted to watch, so it wasn't that big a deal to me. So V, E, and I spent the first half of the day together, and then I watched E until V got home from the show. They had a great time, & E & I did too for the most part. She didn't want me to put her to bed because she always wants mommy to do that, so instead we played until V got home & then E went right to sleep.

And I think that pretty much catches things up. We're flying out to Florida this week for several days to celebrate V's parents' 50th anniversary & see her family, and then it'll be a little over a week before Thanksgiving is here. Eek. For many years now I haven't been a fan of the holiday season, though I do enjoy all the free food. Heh. No, there are always moments I enjoy, but it's the whole commercial/shopping frenzy aspect I hate, and I doubt that having a kiddo will change that for me. If anything it may make it worse, though seeing her face light up on Xmas Eve/Day will definitely help me get over it. And on a related note I saw Santa at the local mall over the weekend, already set up & sitting in his chair waiting for someone to talk to him. Sigh. There really needs to be a worldwide agreement that NOBODY can decorate or sell items for Xmas until the day after Thanksgiving. It's bad enough seeing Xmas merch in stores before Halloween is over, but seeing Santa at the mall the first weekend of November and/or hearing Xmas music before Thanksgiving (which has happened) really irks me.

Well, I don't want to leave this on a downer note, so I guess I'll update you on my Listal lists since I haven't talked about them in a while on here. Shortly before I started my job, I put together several music lists...I made lists for what I feel are the best albums of each year from 2000 through 2009 (links to each are in that list), as well as a Hip-Hop showcase of the Hip-Hop artists that I like (of which there aren't many, or at least not many that are popular). And then I made a little movies rant list called Stop ruining my childhood jerks! which was fun since I rarely complain about things. Life's too short to do too much complaining. ;) And now I'm working on some other lists that I've started but am a ways off from completing. By the next time I post on here hopefully they'll be up.

All right, well, daylight savings has left me feeling more tired than usual today, so I'll make my way to bed. I almost went to bed instead of putting this together, but figured I should post while I wanted to....

Another delayed update

Haven't been back here for a variety of reasons, all of which I'll list quickly so I can get to bed...

1. I'm working now. Found a part-time from home job (about 16 hrs/wk) analyzing the content in website reviews. That means a lot of reading 4 nights out of the week, so once that's done I'm not much in the mood to read anything, especially online. Nevermind write anything of my own. The job is going well so far, and I'm getting the hang of what I'm doing pretty well now. We have weekly meetings which have been about 1/3 informative and 2/3 a useless waste of time. The upside is that I get paid for them, but sometimes I wonder if I should just start skipping them in favor of having quick phone calls with my coach. I may start doing that in the near future once I'm fully confident that I know what I'm doing.

2. The past few weeks were full of visits with my sister as her due date approached, and then passed by with still no baby yet. She finally gave birth last weekend to her son Chase Bryant, who was 8 lbs, 14 oz & 22 in. V went to assist with the birth, which didn't go entirely to plan but worked out well in the end. My parents drove down & stayed with us too, so we had company at the house on top of that. Neither of us got much sleep all last weekend, and spent much of this week trying to catch back up on it. So that was a factor too.

3. What little free time I've had lately has mostly been devoted to watching movies since I only have 3 nights a week I can do that now & it's become my favorite way to spend my nights after E goes to bed (especially when V falls asleep with her). Watching movies is usually followed by updating my Listal, though I've also worked on a few new lists during E's naps. If I remember/have time I'll drop back by & link them "soon."

Not much else I can think of to say at the moment. We're going to go over & see the new parents & baby tomorrow, which should be fun though probably cut short since I'll have to work. Oh yeah, and as of this moment the new Mastodon album has become my favorite album of the year (though I still have many I haven't heard yet). I've listened to it at least a dozen times at the link provided above in the past 2 days, & it keeps sounding better to me every time.

All right, sleep beckons.....

I fail at keeping this updated

I think the heading says it all really. Nearly 2 months have gone by now, and I haven't even opened this up to attempt to blog. Sad sad sad. It's not that nothing has happened...I guess it's more that I haven't been compelled to sit down here and write it all out. Well, the kiddo is sleeping right now, so I figure I'll give it a shot.

Speaking of the kiddo, she's growing and changing every day, as anyone who follows the baby blog, has seen us lately, or is friends with V on fakebook is well aware. She's on the verge of walking, she just needs that push to give it a try on her own. Not that we want her to rush into it, nor are we making any attempts to push her toward it. If she wants to wait longer, that's fine with both of us. Aside from that, her vocabulary continues to grow, she wants us to read to her several times a day, she's eating all kinds of food (mostly veggies and fruit, though she's had some small pieces of meat too and loves rice), and her comedic timing is excellent. Oh, and whenever we go out she's happy to be the center of attention.

Some of my favorite things she does: growls "papa", "mama", and "cat-cat" (often loudly); sits on her knees and dances (working on getting video of this); holds objects up to her head and says "hat?"; waves her arms up & down excitedly, especially when she has a toy in each hand & they go flying; occasionally pronounces the word "book" as "bup-k"; and she does this hilarious high-pitched squawking-like-a-bird noise, which is even funnier when she drags it out. All of those things make me smile if not laugh...we really have a lot of fun around here now.

Our fun may get cut a little shorter in the near future, however, as I'm back to job-hunting. I'm hoping to get something part-time since I REALLY don't want to give up being home with her, but if something full-time comes along that pays well enough I probably won't turn it down. Though I'll be tempted to pass on it just to keep as much time with E as I can get. :P

Aside from all of the above, we've had many social engagements over the past month. My sister stayed with us for most of a week, because she had various events to attend in Austin & didn't feel like driving an hour or so each way from her home every day (which is understandable since her baby will be arriving about a month from now). We went to Dallas for 4th of July weekend, but E was being a pain & wouldn't let us leave her alone or even put her down for long. That meant we only got to spend time with family, which isn't all bad mind you but it'd be nice if I could see some of my friends for a change. I miss them. Then this past Friday we went to a cookout at a couple's house that V met through Google+. They have a daughter too who's about to turn 4, and all 6 of us got along great. It was one of those rare occasions where you meet people for the first time and there's not a single moment of awkwardness, as if you've always been friends & just didn't realize it yet. Very very cool. We're looking forward to hanging out with them again soon!

Finally, I've been keeping busy on Listal (which may also account for my ignoring this blog). Last month I got on a kick of posting meme lists, based mostly off of existing ones that have made the rounds on the site. You've probably seen similar ones on other social networking sites, but the way Listal is set-up makes for a much more enjoyable experience I think than just reading typed answers. Anyway, I say "mostly" because there were questions on each of the memes that I didn't care for & therefore eliminated & replaced with my own instead. The "30 Days, 30 People" lists were the worst IMO, so I completely created my own version. You can check out ALL of my meme lists via my 30 Days lists list.

I also came across a wonderful list by another user called "Few things I love about cinema", which I loved so much I had to create my own (the original list is linked to in mine if you want to check it out too). It's currently the list with the most votes out of all the ones I've created, so I'm pretty proud with the way it turned out. I've also turned over my Netflix instant queue to Listal for the summer by letting them vote on which films I most need to watch. I'm not doing a very good job of going in order so far (mainly because the top film, Casino, is 3 hours long...when do I have time for that?), but I've seen more good/Great films lately than bad ones.

All right, well, she's awake so I'd better go take care of/entertain her....

Spain

The Spain trip was a blast! We all enjoyed it so much that none of us wanted to come back. Too bad we had to anyway. V and I have been posting about it on E's blog, and we've got more to say there coming soon. She took over 500 pictures, which you may or may not be able to check out on her flickr (see other blog for details on that). I still wanted to post some thoughts of my own here though, and so now I shall do just that.

Great things about Spain:

the sun doesn't set until around 10pm, meaning more time to go out & do things.

time doesn't matter - we rarely saw any clocks and if you're out for food/drinks nobody rushes you off your table to fill it with more customers.

if you're out, the main source of entertainment lies in the people you're out with. . .TVs aren't plastered across all the walls, and people congregate in parks just to hang out with their friends.

the food is both excellent and inexpensive compared to here, and doesn't taste like it came out of a package (veggies especially).

beautiful views in every direction.

the Metro - in Madrid it cost us 2 Euros to get from our hotel to the heart of downtown and back again, cheaper than any taxi, bus, or even the price of gas there & back.

the weather, at least while we were there, was never too hot or humid. . .there were warm days, to be sure, but they weren't oppressive in any way, and the nights were very nice & often cool.

they have these window-shades/shutters that block their windows and glass doors completely from all sunlight, which is great if you're sleeping during the daylight hours (and good for energy costs too).

on Fridays and Saturdays there are many places that stay open until 4am serving food and drinks & providing entertainment (even the malls).

I believe it's also common elsewhere in Europe, but everyone leaves work to eat lunch & siesta before dinner time. . .also, during the summer they shorten their hours but still get paid the same as if they worked their regular hours. . .I'm down with that.

to encourage you to return your shopping cart (or luggage cart at the airport) they charge you 1 Euro to unlock it from the others, then return your 1 Euro after you lock it up again. . . after seeing that DFW charges $5 for the use of a luggage cart I'm thinking Spain has the better way of doing things.

tipping isn't expected because servers are paid well enough to not need them.

the use of roundabouts instead of traffic signals seems to make for faster travel times.

if your Spanish isn't very good, it's not too difficult to find someone who speaks English (though I found that the longer I was there, the more Spanish that came back to me).

cellphones are not omnipresent - we rarely saw anyone on a cellphone, and the only time I saw someone texting they'd parked their car to do so.

forgot this one previously - unless you're in the downtown area, you can stop your car & turn on your hazards just about anywhere and that means you've parked. . .beats waiting for a spot to open up!

Not-so-great things about Spain:

motorcycle riders - basically from what we saw & heard they abide by none of the traffic rules, but if you're in an accident with one it's your fault somehow.

roundabouts, the rules of which I'm still not sure I've figured out.

driving in traffic in general, which often made me think of driving along the highways of Houston. . .how we didn't see more accidents is beyond me.

they're worse about billboards than we are.

if you want to sit outside for food &/or drinks and enjoy the wonderful weather, you have to endure smokers who seem to be omnipresent & travel in packs.

Rodilla, sort of the Spain equivalent to Quizno's except that everything is already prepared so you can't make any modifications to your order (all sandwiches drowned in mayo, which is no good if you're like me & can't stand that crap).

if there's a good radio station in Spain, I never found it (not that I like the radio in the first place).

Stradivarius, a store in one of the malls we were at which played awful electronic music that all had the same beat and must clean their store with some kind of perfume because the stench was overwhelming. . .I know other stores do that too, but it was the main offender & V & I regretted walking in there.

8 days wasn't enough to see all that we wanted to. . .clearly we need to go back. ;)

Other observations:

when it comes to food, the pig is king.

they don't believe in using carpet on their floors - marble and wood seem to be the top choices.

the younger people are the most likely to speak English - each time we asked our servers if they spoke English, they called over the youngest employee to assist us.

every mall has a full supermarket inside of it. . .kinda odd to be grocery shopping & look over to see a Claire's.

one mall had an area where you could ski, snowboard, or go tubing down a snow-covered slope inside the mall. . .crazy.

children are out with their parents at all hours, which I think is pretty cool especially since that meant nobody seemed bothered to see the 3 of us out at 2am.

customs wasn't as much of a hassle as we'd been led to expect; in fact, it went very smoothly on both sides & the only long wait we experienced was on arrival in Spain (which seemed to be due to our arriving shortly after the airport opened that morning).

On top of all that it was great to spend some time with Allie & her family, as well as cousin Alex, and we appreciated their willingness to take care of E sometimes so we could have breaks (including a much needed date). E's refusal to adjust to the time difference meant we missed out on some morning activities, but I can't say I had any complaints with being able to stay up late & sleep late the entire time. The schedule she kept us on felt like vacation to me. She was an awesome traveler, happy most of the time & making people smile &/or laugh by sticking her tongue out at them one minute and waving at them the next. She's so much fun right now. V & I managed to watch a few movies waiting for her to go to sleep while we were in Spain, & caught a couple in-flight movies while she slept on our way home too.

The only real downer of the trip was our final flight from DC to DFW, which I have deemed "plagueflight". Once we found the gate for our flight I noticed that ours was one of 4 flights scheduled to use said gate. They eventually moved one or two to other gates, then announced that our plane was in a hangar for "maintenance" and would therefore be delayed. About 2 hours later we were told they'd found another plane to take us instead of the one we were supposed to be on. I decided this was a good thing, because if our original plane was still being worked on then nobody should be traveling anywhere on it. So now we've been waiting 4 hours (so fun with a 9-month-old), and we finally make our way down toward the gate. . .at the end of which we go down some stairs, out onto the tarmac, and then climb the plane's stairs to get inside. At this point I've got a bad feeling, but I'm trying to ignore it by reassuring myself that this plane is still (somehow) better than the other one. Our seats are all the way at the back. More fun. Then as we're getting ready to take off, the woman across the aisle from me starts coughing. Then her daughter coughs. Then her husband, who's sitting farther up the plane from us. V & I exchange worried looks. After we're airborne and making our way toward DFW more people start coughing, and I figure out that about 1/3 of the plane has been coughing. At which point I'm thinking we've all been infected & am wondering how bad it's going to be. V has had a cough ever since, and my throat has been irritated (though it was most of the time in Spain too, so maybe it doesn't mean anything). E coughs sometimes too, but half the time she's just playing so who knows if she's really got a cough or not. So if you stop hearing from us, beware. ;)

And with that cryptic warning I'm off to bed.

where does the time go?

Has it really been over 2 months since I last posted on here? Doesn't seem right to me. Ah well...I suppose I've neglected to post because there's not much I've had to talk about. I could go on & on about the little one, but she's fully covered over here both by words & pictures so it seems a little unnecessary.

I can say that we no longer go out to eat with her, aside from Top Notch where we can all sit in the car and eat (similar to Sonic's set up, except the food is worth eating). We got tired of E throwing fits in restaurants, so we've agreed to avoid that situation until she learns how to behave better. She does just fine whenever we take her shopping, so it seems like she gets annoyed at having to sit in more or less the same place for however long it takes us to eat. Now that she's getting more mobile (regular crawling started this week), it's probably even better that we have the majority of our meals at home.

Anyway, aside from taking care of her I've spent my hours reading, watching movies, spending time with V when she's not working on her thesis (which is still ongoing), and creating lists on Listal. I haven't been to the theatre since Big Trouble in Little China, which was awesome (as was Maniac), and the only concert I've been to was the free one V & I went to during SXSW. We saw Trail of Dead and !!! play together, and it was great to be out of the house & at a show even if only for a couple hours. E has been keeping us from going out too much due to separation anxiety. When we leave her home with someone watching her she seems to spend most of the time throwing fits because we're not there. It sucks, but I know it won't last forever...looking forward to the day when we can start going out without her again.

Record Store Day is this Saturday, and I'm hoping we can get out for that one way or another. I know Waterloo Records is having the Toadies perform, which would be cool to see but isn't necessary. I've seen them more times than I can count, and the last time I saw them was on my birthday a couple years ago & they played all my favorite songs that night so I haven't wanted to see them since. If all 3 of us go, we'll probably need to plan it so we can miss any live music. I definitely have a few things I'd like to purchase, so that's my main priority.

Next month the 3 of us are flying to Spain for about a week! We've booked the flight and V & I have already received our passports. We ran into a slight snag with E's passport, but have got things in motion to get it completed. If they process hers as quickly as ours we should have it back around May 1st I think. It'll be all 3 of our first time out of the U.S. and we're extremely excited about it. I've only wanted to go to Europe for as long as I can remember, so I'm eagerly anticipating this first trip. We'll be staying with her sister Allie & her family while we're there, which will be awesome. We haven't seen Allie since E was born, and the rest of her family we last saw about a year before that. I'm not that concerned with the specifics of what we'll do there, as I'll be content just to check everything out. If we get to hit another country while we're there that'd be awesome too, but we'll have to see how things work out.

The only other news I have really is that my sister found out today she's having a boy. I told her she gets to have the boy that she wished she was when she was a child. She laughed but then thought maybe that wasn't so funny. Growing up she wanted to be a boy because she thought that was why I got to do more things than she did...she wound up being a tomboy, so that's always sort of stuck with her. Methinks this means she'll be a great mom to their little boy. ;)

I wound up declining the Pearson job mentioned in my previous post because they wanted me to work onsite full-time. I told them to keep me in mind for future projects, but obviously right now I can't do that (especially since what they would pay me won't cover day care costs). I can't say I'm regretting not being able to work for them either though. Taking care of her is the best job I've ever had, and rewarding far beyond any paycheck.

And I guess that's about it. As promised in my last post, you can now check out all of my "Best movies of" lists for 1977-2010 here. Also, I created a list for all of my music lists with links to each music-related list I have created. Last month I made a list of my childhood TV favorites, which was pretty popular, lists ranking the films of 2 of my favorite directors, Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam, and then my most recent list is of my favorite performances in horror movies. Check out whichever of those strike your fancy.

Sorry again for the delay...I'll try to do better in the future.

Aural pleasure and goings-on

Sitting here at the computer, ripping my CD collection into my new toy. V got that for me recently as a gift (as well as a couple t-shirts and a shower curtain/bathmat set I wanted from thinkgeek...I'm loved). Been meaning to replace my Creative Zen since it died last year, and since then I've primarily used a pair of small-capacity Sansa mp3 players. The Zen and I had a beautiful friendship...at times it seemed to read my mind and/or feelings & choose songs accordingly. Hopefully my Zune will be able to do the same. I've had a few occasions to use it so far, and while it seemed to play appropriate songs for a Sunday morning today the jury's still out on how synced we are. By the time I go to bed I should be about 1/3 of the way through my collection. I started this on Thursday. Hopefully I'll be done before the weekend.

Settling into the new routine around here. Most days I get E ready & take her to V's work for some mommy time during lunch. They're both enjoying it, and sometimes on the way home E looks like she's sad that we're headed back without mama. I was doing well on getting her into a nap routine, but then this past week screwed everything up. With it being so cold out V didn't want me taking E outside much (which was fine...I didn't want to go out in the cold either heh), so she came home for lunch 2 days last week & then worked from home on Friday. And so our little routine fell apart a bit, as E switched to short naps instead of taking longer ones. It'd be nice if the weather we had over the weekend would stick around (60s & low 70s for highs), but it looks like another cold front rolls through this week. So hopefully it just won't be as bad as last week so we can get back to the routine and get out of the house on a daily basis again. I think that as much as anything does us both some good.

Other news...my sister called me today to let me know I'm going to be an uncle. Her due date is the same as Vita's was last year, so it looks like she'll be having her first kiddo around E's birthday. Crazy! A year ago on Super Bowl Sunday we told my parents V was pregnant, then told my sister afterwards. She of course remembered & decided to do the same (though she called my parents yesterday). We're excited for her & her husband. She's even got an appointment to check out the birthing center where we went & wants to deliver there. And of course she'll be asking us for advice as needed.

Also, I was offered to work at Pearson again & I have accepted it for now. From the way the e-mail was written it looks like it's a work-from-home job this time around, but it also looks like the hours are set at 8am-4pm. So there's a good possibility that I'll end up not working for them after all. I'd like to do it, but if I HAVE to be available only during those hours then that'll be hard. I can't exactly ignore E for 8 hours every day. Waiting for more information now, but at least I know that I can walk away at any time & it's OK.

Beyond that, I've decided that I need a night off from the home responsibilities once in a while. So this week & next I've bought tickets to see films at Alamo Drafthouse that I want to see: Maniac! and Big Trouble in Little China. Looking forward to seeing both on the big screen, and having some time to myself (well, sort of...I mean, there will be other people there too I just won't know them). Considering doing one of their upcoming Pulp Fiction quote-alongs too, but haven't decided yet. I could easily do that...I've seen it enough times that the last time I watched it I was able to recite most if not all of the dialogue. And it's not like I haven't paid to see it multiple times in theatres over the years, so we'll see.

And speaking of movies, we've been catching up on those still. Feel free to consult my previously linked-to "Watched in 2011" list to see what I've watched. I've also uploaded to Listal my Best movies of 2010 list, as well as lists for 2000 through 2009, all of which can be accessed from my Best of 00s list if you're interested. At this point I've made similar lists for each year I've been alive (that'd be starting with 1977), and plan to upload them a decade at a time each Friday of this month. Once the 70s lists are up I'll also post the list I made collecting the links to all of them. Yeah, I've been keeping busy over on Listal heh.

I've also made a new music-related list of a personal nature, which has spent most of Sunday on the main page of the site. It's called Songs and what they mean to me. I consider it the proper follow-up to my previously mentioned "I was a preteen metalhead" list. As anyone who knows me well is aware, music's been a big deal to me for pretty much my entire life, so making personal lists out of the music I like is somewhat easy and completely enjoyable. I feel like between the 2 I've given some fairly extensive insight into my tastes & myself, so it may not be as easy to come up with another one. I'll have to wrack my brain a bit perhaps.

Other than all of the above, there's not much else to tell. We had dinner Saturday night at a former co-worker/friend of mine's apartment that was nice, and we've got a friends' wedding coming up to go to. The wedding falls on a weekend, so my parents will come down to take care of E for us. I'm hoping to squeeze in the Swans performance here that weekend too, but at this point if I want to I may have to go alone. Perhaps if I go out alone often enough I'll make some new friends with similar interests though. That'd be great.

And now I'm officially out of things to talk about. As you were...

Still alive

Been meaning to post here, but the holiday season kept me plenty busy. Thanksgiving & Xmas were spent in Dallas with my family, V's mom came out and spent a week with us, and the New Year's holiday was spent catching up on movies. I've watched about 15 films since New Year's Eve, and V watched most of those with me which made me happy since we hadn't watched many together in the past couple months. I've spent many a late night watching a movie or two while she & E sleep, which isn't a bad thing but having someone to discuss a movie with after it ends is always better than discussing it with myself. I've got a handful of films waiting to be watched before I post my best of 2010 list anywhere, but I hope to do so by the end of the month.

Speaking of lists, I've been making more of those on Listal lately. Feel free to check them out: Best albums of 2010, Most anticipated albums of 2011, and Watched in 2011. The watched list will be updated regularly throughout the year to document what films I watch this year, whether for the first time or a repeat viewing. It's something a lot of Listal users do, so I've decided to give it a try. I hope to use it as a springboard for other movie lists as the year progresses. The most anticipated albums list is a work in progress too...right now it reflects the information that's available, so as album titles & release dates are set I'll add them as well as any albums coming out I'm unaware of at this time.

I'm still enjoying staying at home with the little one. She seems to change every day, doing new things, being more vocal, and so on. She also seems more aware...I often catch her focusing on things she never did before, and since Christmas she's been touching my beard

whenever my face is close enough. I love it & am always willing to endure the risk of her scratching my face in the process (which occasionally happens).

Her favorite toy lately seems to be her feet, which she happily grabs and holds onto for long stretches of time. Next to them she loves anything she can fit into her mouth and bite down on, which has us expecting her to start teething soon.

She's never been keen on spending time on her tummy, so I'm making it my mission to make her do so a little each day until she realizes it's not so bad. I'm sure once that happens it won't be long before she works toward crawling. I'm also trying to read a book to her each day, which seems to only interest her when she's in a good mood. If I read to her after she's been playing a while she usually throws a fit in the middle of the book hehe. So far her favorite book is Pat the Bunny, which was one of my childhood favorites as well. I think mostly she likes that the book gives her things to do rather than just sit there & listen to me.

As for other plans for the near future, V will have to work full-time again soon...once that happens E & I will drive there to have lunch with her every day so they're not apart for too long. Already E starts getting upset if V's not home close to 4pm, as if she knows that's the time mommy gets home. I think she's too smart for our own good already. ;) Also, I'd like to take some computer classes at the community college in the near future. The job interviews I had last year taught me that I'm not as computer savvy as potential employers would like, so that's something I need to work on. Not sure yet when that will happen, but I definitely prefer taking classes over trying to teach myself especially when it comes to software I've never used. Finally, I may work for Pearson again on the TAKS test since they're planning to have a lot of employees working from home this year. I'll have to know more details before I decide.

Other than that, I guess there's 2 pieces of news I haven't broadcast here yet. First off, we recently traded V's car in for a bigger vehicle. The trips to Dallas taught us that we needed more room than the Subaru Impreza provided, so now we've got a Honda CR-V to get around in. I've done most of the driving so far and am loving it. Not only does it have more room, it's now easier to get E in and out of her carseat (big plus!) and the seats are more comfortable for me than the Subaru's.

The other news is that on Nov. 22nd V & I went out to dinner to celebrate a year & 1/2 together & she proposed to me. Despite her not giving me a ring, I said yes. We haven't set a date yet, because our main focus is on our honeymoon which we intend to spend in Europe. Once she has the time off saved up and we have the money to go we'll figure out when the wedding will take place. We don't plan on having any big ceremony, just a small service. I haven't been telling everyone because, well, it's not that big of a deal to me. Ever since I told her I love her I've been 100% committed to our relationship, and having a child together seems like a bigger & more important commitment than a wedding ceremony. I've said all along that I'm with her no matter what, and I don't need a ceremony or a piece of paper to prove it, which is also why when she found out she was pregnant last year I told her that if she ever decided she wanted to marry me she'd have to propose. I guess making it legally official is a good thing in the event something should happen to either of us, but beyond that... I don't know. Please don't mistake what I'm saying, I'm glad we're getting married (otherwise I would've said no, right?), it's just not the major event for me that it is for most people I guess. Being legally married won't change anything for me personally, except I'll be able to call V my wife in conversations. I'm more excited about us going to Europe, which is somewhere I've always wanted to go. Best of all I'll get to see it with her by my side.