Hurricane Charley, which originally was supposed to be quite the downpour, turned out to be nothing more than an afternoon of soft, steady rain. Today has been beautiful, with a slight breeze and a very comfortable 75 degrees. I should be outside mowing the lawn and such, but yard work is yard work.

With Gail being gone (she’s out in Arizona visiting her parents and then she’ll be back with the kids on Thursday), I’ve been mostly just hanging out and watching TV. Being a slug in other words. Before leaving, Gail instructed Marcia to take me shopping at J.C. Penny’s, as they are having a sale. I actually bought clothes for myself. Which is odd; I never buy clothes for myself.

Hopefully the problems with the hardware that hosts my website has been fixed. Apparently the hard drive went south, and after that was replaced, the RAID controller went. Lots of fun.

It would appear that storms of all sorts have to be weathered.

Naturally, one of the main "hot topics" for today is Janet Jackson's Peek-a-Boob "faux-pas" during the Super Bowl halftime show. Obviously, the media has had a field day, with all sorts of articles hyping on the "accidental" exposure that Justin Timberlake caused by ripping off the right part of her bodice.

What amuses me is that this was supposed to be an accident. This wasn't staged, and everyone involved is apologizing up and down for it. But geez, wasn't anyone watching? At the end, when Timberlake had his hand wrapping around Janet's waist, and then slid up, grabbed the material and pulled? Sure, she looked surprised, but maybe she's just a good actress. Or maybe Timberlake was seeing if it really was Janet, and not her brother Michael. Regardless, I have to think it was staged...mostly because most women I know don't wear a nipple shield under their clothes. (Link is NOT safe for work, children, small dogs, etc...) You'll also notice in the picture that the outfit Ms. Jackson is wearing has snaps in the bra cups. Convenient, eh?

Oh, and she has a new single coming out as well...and according to the press release, it's spreading "like wildfire". Funny, considering the timestamp on the article shows that it was published even before the game was over.

Coincidence? I think not. Staged? Most likely...

Other than that bit of excitement, the weekend over all was good. Aside from the afore mentioned Super Bowl party at Jeff and Marcia's, the kids and I had a lock-in at the YMCA Saturday night with the Indian Guides (or, as known now, the Adventure Guides. Apparently, honoring the Native American way of life, and reverence to all things nature wasn't "politically correct" so they had to change the name. Now, instead of "Great Spirit" it's "The Creator's...". But I digress...). We basically had the run of the place from closing until the next morning. We swam in the pool (or the kids did at least), shot baskets in the gym, watched movies, and ran around acting like idiots. Good fun! As a bonus, Gail managed to have a "girls night out" with some friends. They went to dinner, and a movie and had a great time. She was so happy and relaxed when we got home Sunday morning. I'll have to try and make sure she has more evenings like that.

One of the things I've decided I need to do is to follow through on some of my ideas, complete projects in a decent amount of time, and generally get things done. I've been wanting to try modding my own PC case, and have been reading forums and how-to's, and I've even gone so far as to strip a case I had lying around down to the bare bones. But I haven't ever bothered to start the actual work.

The reason I bring this up is because of a site I recently saw. The Mushroom House is the creation of a guy (aptly named "Zube") who came up with the idea in the late '70s. It's an incredible piece of work, with detail that's just astounding. The house itself, interior and exterior, reminds me of a hobbit hole, and the whole "nature" motif is carried throughout the house.

Obviously Zube (I love saying that name) must have had an incredible passion, for this took 22 years to complete. The only thing I've done for 22 years is breathe. I'd like to have this kind of determination and desire to have such a vision, and decide to do it, however out of this world the idea might seem.

The Matrix Reloaded opened last night in my neighborhood theater. I bought tickets a week ago when I heard they were having "preview" showings, and myself and 6 of my friends all went.

I also won a drawing here at work where I get to go see it tonight for free, and as a team, we're going tomorrow afternoon to see it as well. Good thing I liked it. :)

In other news, I think I've actually settled on a major. I think I'm going to go for a Psychology major, with a minor in Film and Media Studies. Why Film and Media? I've always loved movies, love the Internet, and find the way the media in general can manipulate the public thought process fascinating and disturbing. That interest should tie in nicely with the Psych degree.

Weather wise, it's been a weird week. Sunday and Monday it was cold and snowing. Wednesday and Thursday, it was gorgeous, high 70s. Naturally, I rode the bike in to work both days. Today, it's supposed to be in the low 70s. Riding to work this morning, it was cold, and there was patchy fog. My cheeks were freezing when I got here. I hope it does get to that promised 73 degrees.

I'm settling into my new role as QA tester type person. On my first "real day" of working as a tester, they gave me some stuff to test (naturally). Real basic stuff, entering difference values for different parameters for our new bug tracking software. I changed a few things, everything was good. Then I thought to myself "well, what if I did this?", and ended up breaking the whole system. I broke our bug tracking system, but not only that, I apparently broke the system it was based off, as well as created some firewall issues for the west coast people.

Man, do I know how to do my job or what?? What's even better is the fact that I get to break it and don't have to fix it. That rules.