Anyone remember the Apple II game, Below the Root? It was only my all-time favorite computer game when I was a kid!

Released in 1984, it was also one of the most complex adventure games around, grooming my taste for later games such as Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. Nowadays, you can download a C64 emulator and play the original Below the Root in all its colorful and musical glory. Also, the world of play is enormous for its time.

Tonight I discovered a user on YouTube who has videotaped himself playing the game, narrating as he goes. It's essentially a Below the Root tutorial/walkthrough, but since I've only watched parts 1 and 2 so far I'm not sure how far he goes. Some of his comments are kind of lame, but he actually does a pretty good job explaining the world, the premise, how items are used, how to use your skills, etc.

Below the Root: Part 1

Conversations like these are why I still log on to NannyMUD after more than 12 years. You can always count on refreshingly geeky banter by old, familiar faces after a day spent with mostly normal people in the real world.

Wiz Narya: WASHINGTON - President Bush says he has no doubts about launching the unpopular war in Iraq despite the "high cost in lives and treasure," arguing that retreat now would embolden Iran and provide al-Qaida with money for weapons of mass destruction to attack the United States.
Wiz Narya: See, that was the thing. He thought he was a level 20 priest and Saddam was a demon.
Wiz Narya: Treasure. Jesus H. Christ.
Wiz Belegur: I'm pretty sure Bush lacks the requisite intelligence to be a level 20 priest.
Wiz Lonewolf: Oonst.
Wiz Yaleah: OMG, Belegur, priests need high WISDOM.
Wiz Yaleah points at Belegur and snorts.
Wiz Belegur: Oh.
Wiz Belegur hmms.
Wiz Lonewolf: Bah, clerics, not priests!
Wiz Narya: Didn't int help them remember things too?
Wiz Narya: No, maybe not.
Wiz Lonewolf: Depends on how crazy newfangled you wanted to get.
Wiz Narya: Okay, FINE, so I play WoW now and haven't played D&D or AD&D or their ilk in years and years.
Wiz Lonewolf: Good ol' fashioned D&D had a Prime Requisite of 9 Wisdom to be a cleric, and that was that.
Wiz Lonewolf: AND WE NEVER LIKED YOU ANYWAY NARYA
Wiz Lonewolf runs away crying.
Wiz Narya: He thinks he's a level 70 holy-specced priest and Iraq was the Black Temple.
Wiz Yaleah: All these points are moot; Bush doesn't have any of it.
Wiz Belegur: Unfortunately he's got pretty decent Con. :(
Wiz Narya: Well, maybe he needs to repair his armour to get his stat boosts back.
Wiz Oak: D&D sucked. GURPS rules!
Wiz Narya: Oh, NOW we're gonna start the whole Linux-vs.-Windows thing too, right?
Wiz Yaleah: And Luck. He must be a halfling.
Wiz Moonchild: Rumsfeld's broken and can't be repaired.
Wiz Narya: "GURPS is like GNU!" "YOU SUCK"
Wiz Moonchild: And he lost Colin Powell somewhere.
Wiz Narya: Colin Powell left the guild. :(
Wiz Narya: He doesn't run dungeon raids any more. I think he's off working on his tradeskills.
Wiz Earendil: WHOAHHHHH!!!
Wiz Yaleah: The real question is, if they all played WoW, which ones would be manginas?
Wiz Moonchild: it's OK, they recruited Joe Lieberman to replace him.
Wiz Earendil: Chester Cheetoh totally, absolutely, fricking RULES now
Wiz Narya: Manginas? I don't think that's in WoW.
Wiz Earendil: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X2qT7Ki29Y
Wiz Earendil: stop talking WoW and watch this cheetos advert

Last weekend I made banana bread, and it was warm and sweet and good. I ate the last of my loaf this morning and also had a slice of Jonas' loaf (with nuts). Mine was slightly on the dry side, and I wonder if that's because I left out the nuts called for in the recipe. They might help the moisture level with the oils they release when heated. If I make it again, I'll add more yogurt to compensate.

I'm addicted to Scrabulous. I thought I was doing well until Belegur slapped a 221-point play on my ass, but I haven't let that discourage me. :)

I've made somewhat productive use of my day off today, and have uploaded a photo set from my scrapbooking retreat in Wisconsin. Included are two group photos. Can't wait until next year!

One last thing, the best quote I've heard in a while: "Don't like gay marriage? Then don't get one." Haha!

I finally got Railroad Tycoon 3 installed last night -- I got it nearly a week ago for my birthday but just hadn't made time to try it out. I was a huge fan of RRT2. So far it is pretty neat, although I'm still trying to figure out how the supply and demand engine works -- rather, whether there is any demand. There must be, but I haven't seen it anywhere. Once I had about 10 trains set up and running between cities, it was almost just as fun with the new 3D environment to just sit back and watch them fly over the mountains, past cities and across rivers. I can see why model train enthusiasts are interested -- for them it must be like a dream come true. I've never cared much for model trains, but the strategic challenge of setting up a profitable railroad to send cargo to and from cities over an entire continent was what appealed to me in Railroad Tycoon 2. I have high hopes for the new one once I figure out a few more things.

Jonas made us a delicious chicken dinner with rice and potatoes. I said I would clean up the kitchen afterward, but I got so engrossed in my game until midnight that I completely forgot! Oops. Now some dirty dishes and pans are still waiting at home for me.

On my way home today I have to drop off my last 2 Christmas cards at the post office, then I'm truly done. One is Kris', delayed because I didn't know her address at their new apartment; the other is for Uncle Joe, whose address I just found by chance on his website yesterday. He makes nifty custom pool cues.

I still don't know what to get anyone for Christmas. I'm going to the mall tomorrow afternoon, maybe walking around there a little will stir up some ideas. Jonas and I aren't exchanging gifts -- at least we said we weren't last time we talked about it. I think his gift should be getting his car repaired. ;)

I'm off tomorrow! I'm not sure if I can sleep in or not, though. Depends on whether we're returning the rental car in the morning or afternoon. Right now I feel kind of sick. Wonder if I ate something bad for lunch. :( Yuck.

Dean woke me up yesterday morning calling to let us know he'd completed the title transfer of the car we gave him and added it to his insurance. I decided to stay awake anyway, but I stayed in bed reading for an hour or so. I've reached the limit on renewing my book, and now it's due for real on December 16th. If it starts to look like there's no way I'll finish it I'll have to reserve another copy.

Note to self: I need to fill my new prescription this week.

This morning we carpooled in Jonas' new car. Boy, was it toasty with butt heat! I'm not sure what's going on after work -- I'd love to go out to eat but we really shouldn't. I've got such a craving for Culver's chili cheese fries right now!! Then there are the turkey leftovers in the fridge ...

My car seriously needs a paint job and some windshield repair. I have several patches where the paint has peeled off entirely and they are steadily growing larger and rusting. My car is already 10 years old so it's not worth much, but it also needs to last me another 2-3 years. I don't want to feel like a poor person driving around in a piece of junk. Jonas looked into the cost of touching up the peeling spots as well as getting a complete new paint job, and they basically amount to the same. A whole new paint job seems silly considering the age and relative value of the car itself, but something has to be done -- and soon.

Oh, I have to mention -- Jonas and I played Scrabble the other night. He doesn't really like playing that much because English is not his first language and he gets really frustrated trying to compete with me. Somehow I convinced him to play just once for that night and he came up with some pretty good words: growy (something/someone that grows really well), eggdressed (presumably describing an egg that you dress for cooking, like a dressed turkey), sundressed (the state of wearing a sundress), and lionjowls (in Swedish you can often smack an adjective onto the noun it describes to create one long word, unfortunately not so in English). I wasn't trying to be mean or make fun of his efforts, but they were so funny I couldn't stop laughing. :)

What an excellent concert!!!

Last night we went to see Simon & Garfunkel at the Xcel Center in St. Paul. It was just fantastic. It was also my first ever concert experience, so there was that whole ethereal aspect as well. They of course did all of their hits, and several songs I'd never heard before ("Here's a little something we wrote when we were 15..."). I'd initially wanted to take Dad along, but he didn't think he could sit so long at a time. Now I wish we'd have insisted anyhow -- he would have loved it, especially since the Everly Brothers came out and performed a few songs as well. In all it was just about two and a half hours long, and we were on 35E by 11:15pm and decided to time how long it took us to get to Chaska from St. Paul. Amazingly, we were within the Chaska city limits by 11:45 (then another 10 minutes or so to get to our house). How come it never goes that fast in the daytime? :)

Well, I fearfully got on the scale this morning knowing it would be bad news. Ever since this past spring when we started getting involved with building the house we have totally let ourselves go in terms of horrible eating habits. After having successfully lost my 15 lbs last year (Jonas lost 30) and managing to maintain fairly well over the winter, it's all come back. That kind of freaked me out, so I'm starting to use the Points Tracker on Weight Watchers Online again. We've been paying for the account anyway, I should have been using it all along. It's just so easy to let go, and restaurant food naturally tastes so much better than nearly everything I can make "healthy." Jonas says he's along for the ride, but I don't know if he'll stick it out. It will be really hard for me if he doesn't, since I have very little willpower in this area on my own.

Newly inspired (albeit by fear) to eat healthier, I picked out a recipe from WWO for barbecued pork sandwiches and made that for us for dinner last night. It was really delicious, although I was drooling to have a second portion when I'd finished my first bun. Jonas did anyway, but somehow I held back. After dinner we watched the second Matrix movie. Jonas had made me watch the first one last weekend so that we could go see the 3rd whenever it comes out, which I believe is fairly soon. They were decent, but the prolonged fight scenes of the 2nd one got awfully monotonous for me after a while -- I swear they went on for twenty minutes. Each time I would turn to Jonas and go, "Oh boy! Another fighting scene!"

After the movie I played a teeny bit of Baldur's Gate before heading to bed. My package from Amazon arrived yesterday, containing the Baldur's Gate II Collection for me and another game for Jonas that I'd never heard of. Now I have to finish the first game before I'll allow myself to try the second. I'm right smack in the middle of the Cloakwood Mines.

I puttered around the house in the morning and played Baldur's Gate until the midday sun was shining too bright through the window for me to see the monitor well enough. (Yes, I've started the game again for probably the fifth time. Somewhere along the way I always lose interest so I've never gotten to the end. However, I feel newly inspired, having just finished NWN.)

Jonas took the afternoon off and brought home Culver's, and we watched some Law & Order: SVU. Later in the afternoon we decided to go bowling. I'd thought of trying the lanes down in Norwood, but it would have been more fun if we could have combined it with dinner, trying out a new restaurant down there. Since we'd just eaten not too long before, we decided to go up to Eden Prairie instead. It was pretty crowded with leagues and some high school teams, but we managed to get the last available lane. The lady at the desk charged us for one adult and one "junior" admission -- what is this all of a sudden? I'm 27 years old, for Pete's sake! Well, we didn't say anything because it was cheaper! Just last Friday an elderly man at the library asked, "Oh, they are hiring children nowadays?" I just grinned and said, "I'm older than you think." It is just a little strange to get so many weird age-comments all in the last month. Maybe I'm using the right moisturizer! Haha!

After bowling (Jonas won both games) we went to see a movie. Jonas picked Intolerable Cruelty and it was OK, but 2+ hours is getting to be a long time for my poor knees to sit still without starting to get achy. I used to enjoy going to movies more, but the combination of my knees and the fact that I freeze to death in the theater always turns me off to the idea most of the time nowadays. Why do they have to keep it so goddamn cold? I practically have to wear my winter jacket into the theater during the summer! Grrr.

Later on after we played some computer games, Jonas ran out and rented some movies. We watched about half of Spirited Away before he fell asleep, which really bugs me sometimes. He has a tendency to recline in the sofa as far as it goes, even though I tell him he's just going to fall asleep sitting like that. Then of course he does, and I have to watch everything all over again as we go back to the parts he slept through. Since this has been the pattern ever since we got the reclining sofa, I realize I'm just going to have to live with it, but it's so aggravating sometimes. Usually I just turn the whole thing off and get up to go do something else. If he wakes up and wants to continue, I say, "We can continue watching it when you're feeling more alert." :)

Jonas and I have been testing the possibility of carpooling a few days each week. It would seem to make sense, since we are both working in Eden Prairie. So far it's gone fairly well. The hardest part for me is fighting a different kind of traffic because we have to leave earlier than I normally would have if I were driving alone. Even just 20 minutes later the traffic is significantly lighter. The past two days I have been either just in time or slightly late for work as we try to work out the right time to leave. So we'll see how it goes, right now is just the trial period.

Last night I won Neverwinter Nights for the first time. Excellent game. Now to maybe try the expansion to it. I thought I even heard somewhere that there is going to be a Neverwinter II, but I could be mistaken. Of all the styles of computer games that I find enjoyable, this type (including the Baldur's Gates) are my absolute favorite, perfect for my preferred playing style.

Just one more day of work then I'm off Friday. No plans yet, but really should get cracking on getting the crap in the garage either moved or otherwise organized. It looks like a poor excuse for a rummage sale in there. I don't know how I acquired all this junk. Well, off to read.

Currently reading at home: ...And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer
Currently reading at work: The Master of All Desires by Judith Merkle Riley (Actually, I'm cheating on this one, having been so engrossed that I've been bringing it home to read as well.)

It was a productive, yet not quite fulfilling weekend. I'm now on intimate terms with housing insulation.

At our construction meeting last Thursday we found out that sheetrocking was going to begin Monday (today). Earlier in the building process when we'd had to decide which options we wanted and which we didn't, we opted not to pay extra to have the outer garage walls insulated (it was $700 extra). The two walls adjacent to the house would be insulated by Rottlund at no extra charge. We figured it was something we could always do ourselves later on. Then at the aforementioned meeting we learned that they were going to sheetrock ALL the garage walls, regardless of whether there was going to be insulation underneath or not. It seemed kind of silly to have them put sheetrock over empty air, so Joel (who conducted the meeting) said that if we wanted to we could come out over the weekend and insulate those two outer walls ourselves, and they'd sheetrock over it this week.

I called Dad to see if he'd help out -- neither Jonas nor I have had any experience in home finishing -- and we all met at Home Depot where we picked up four packages of insulation. The whole job of insulating and stapling plastic over the walls took only about 3 and a half hours. It turned out to be pretty simple, and probably ultimately something Jonas and I could have done ourselves, but I was glad to have Dad along because he knew what he was doing from the start! The fiberglass experience wasn't as awful as I'd imagined it was going to be. Sure, I itched a little, but it was OK (I'd do it again, I think). I also came away with a small blister on my thumb from cutting the insulation, but the best part was the feeling that we actually contributed (albeit slightly) to the construction of our home with our own two hands!

Sunday we went out to Dad's and had steak on the grill, and for the first time got to meet his girlfriend Mary. I'd been interested in meeting her for a while, but Dad is kind of a private guy and we didn't want to ask too many questions or appear too anxious to meet her. She seemed like a nice woman (and had made excellent potato salad and banana cream pie!), and she and Dad seem happy together. I'm not sure how long they've been dating -- at least since last Christmas. I was really curious to ask her all kinds of questions about her family and children, but I didn't want to seem like I was interrogating her the first time we met.

Bought two new puzzles -- a tableau of vegetables and an ancient world map. We finished the Coca-Cola one Saturday afternoon and needed another fix. Hah. If this continues, we're eventually going to need an entire room devoted to puzzle storage.

This will probably be a quickie.

Feeling pretty good about getting organized and taking charge of our finances. The Money program is excellent. I'm able to keep track of where almost every penny goes -- the one exception is the "cash in hand" account, which is always a bit off when Jonas drops a few bucks on little things here and there and forgets to tell me how much. When each month is over it's nice to look back and see what we spent in each category, although the last few months were severely distorted from having paid $8,000 towards our down payment. Given all the house expenses coming up this year we probably won't get a real accurate picture of our normal budget until early next year.

I had to work today. It was my own damn fault -- I had to sign up for 3 Saturdays during the summer, and without consulting a calendar I chose randomly, not realizing this was Memorial Day weekend. Not that it's a big deal, we weren't going anywhere, but I could have had 3 days off in a row. Boo hoo. Oh, one interesting thing did happen at work: the police came and served one of our patrons with a "no trespassing" warrant for 30 days. He's a 13ish-year-old kid who has continuously been taking items that are on reserve for other people, and is the prime suspect in the theft of numerous anime DVDs and videotapes over the last few months. Getting started young, they are ...

Made a light pasta salad for dinner: cherry tomatoes, basil, fresh mozzarella and whole-wheat rotini pasta. It was pretty good for being Good For You. Those cherry tomatoes are so yummy!!

So we bought a puzzle a few weeks ago and have been working on it a few hours during the weekends. Yep, we're well on our way to becoming Old People Who Do Puzzles. We've got about 1/3 to go now. It's a picture of some castle in Germany, apparently relatively recently built by a guy who wanted to live in his own castle. Wow, 3 adverbs in a row up there! *flex*

Jonas just went out to Barnes & Noble to buy a CD of classical music. It's called something like "The Best Classical Music Album Ever." Apparently it got some good reviews. We've been playing soft, relaxing music while working the puzzle, now with another CD there'll be a little more variety.

Last night Jonas made a late-evening trip to Target for firewood (the artificial logs). He ended up buying three computer games, Diet Dr Pepper and a new phone/answering machine (our old one has been broken for about a month), but managed to forget the firewood altogether. Heh.

Two of the games were war games he'd been wanting for a while, the other was Jeopardy 2003. Cool! We love our Jeopardy! We tape the show every day, although we don't always get around to watching them before they're overwritten. Anyway, it was a cool game. I kicked Jonas' and the computer player's ass the first game and was leading by a huge margin in the second game, but I boldly (foolishly?) decided to wager my entire score on a daily double that I blew. So the computer player won game 2. Unfortunately, Jonas is at a disadvantage when playing, as English is not his native language. I should maybe handicap myself in some way. Naaaah. :)

This afternoon we're meeting Mom and Dean for a movie and dinner afterward at Outback Steakhouse. This "quality time spent with your daughter and son-in-law" was part of our Christmas gift to them last year. The movie we're seeing is The Recruit. I haven't heard too much about it, but we'll have a good time. In about an hour we'll have to start getting ready to go. In the meantime, Jonas is studying a new book in preparation for the new class he'll be teaching soon. Don't ask me what it's about -- computer stuff, networking, or something.

I'm so proud of the cleaning job I did yesterday! Just needs a little vacuuming to polish it off and I will be satisfied.

Just a quick entry to make here before I go off and play. Lately, Age of Empires II has been the game of choice, but I've been getting kind of bored with it so I might pull out something else I haven't played in a while.

We picked up D'amico for dinner. Tortellini for me and artichoke salad and a sandwich for Jonas. We sat picnic-like in the livingroom and watched an episode of Law & Order, then The Surreal Life. I've never been a fan of reality shows, and have done my best to avoid them entirely, but there is something about this houseful of has-beens that piques my interest in one of those unpleasant-but-intriguing ways -- that is, feeling repulsion or incredible dislike for something, while at the same time being quite fascinated by it. As for the characters, all I can say is what a real piece of work is Corey Feldman. (But I guess we knew that 10 years ago.)

No CDs came today. Bummer.

I'm off tomorrow. Of course, that means I have to work Saturday instead, but on Thursday evenings it sure sounds like a good idea. Wonder what I'll do.

Cute. Dad just sent me an email asking the question, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" and giving the answers as spoken by various famous contemporary and historical figures. Being relatively new to the whole computer thing, he is really into forwarding "funnies."

Day off. Whoopee.

I was really shocked when I woke up, as it was noon. Usually, even when I sleep in I wake up several times and check the clock and roll over again before actually getting out of bed. Today the first time I was not even somewhat conscious was noon. I guess I was tired or something!

Played games for a little while (Settlers III) and then finally got up the energy to throw in the laundry. 6 loads. Nothing too exciting, there. When Jonas got home around 10 we went grocery shopping. I went to read for a while -- quite a while, actually, so long that even Jonas was ready to come to bed!

Currently reading at home: Crossing to Safety (Wallace Stegner)
Currently reading at work: (none currently, going to start something new soon)

Well now. I'm writing this several days behind so I may forget something that happened.

My friend Kristina had called last night to see if Jonas and I wanted to get together for dinner with her and her boyfriend Chuck, so we decided on tonight. I had to work all day, so when I got home I quick did some tidying up of the apartment as we were going to meet here before deciding on where to go to eat.

They arrived a little before 6pm and we decided to head to the Green Mill restaurant here in town. It was really fun to see them again. Kristina is a really old friend from elementary school and Chuck is a guy she'd met online 6 years ago and they were even engaged at some point but had broken up. Now they've gotten back together again and seem quite happy. He's visiting for a week over the holidays from England. I'd met Chuck 5 years ago when he was visiting her in Madison so it was a second meeting for me too. I had a calzone and Jonas had one of their specialty pizzas.

We invited them back to our place afterwards and we played Trivial Pursuit. Jonas and I ended up battling to land on the center space first, but he eventually did and answered the question correctly and won. I really love that game. :) The game ended pretty late and afterward they headed back home, where Kristina lives with her parents in Maplewood.

Merry Christmas! We slept in for a while and then after I nagged a little Jonas started cooking the rice pudding he'd planned to make to bring to Dad's. We left here a little before 1:30pm and headed out to Dad's in Buffalo.

We got there and there were some goodies waiting for us in our stockings, candy and crackers and things. We exchanged gifts and Jonas and I got an electric carving knife, a relish dish and some crystal wine glasses from Dad. From Kris I got a gift card for JC Penney. We also got a one-a-day bathroom reader calendar, from Dad I think. Kris and I had given Dad 8 new place settings with an ivy design to match his kitchen and to replace the mismatched settings he's been using for so long. Jonas and I had gotten Kris a season pass to Valleyfair for next year and then I'd also gotten her a little gift bag from Bath and Body Works.

We played some cards until dinner was done and then we had ham, rolls, broccoli, baked potatoes -- and for dessert we had Jonas' rice pudding and cherry pie. Afterwards we played Tripoli for a while and then Jonas and I headed home around 7 or so. It was a great Christmas!!

It's Christmas Eve! We got up and ready by around 1pm and then headed to Grandma's apartment to pick her up and give her a ride to Mom's for our family Christmas Eve gathering.

Since Mom has a pretty small house we thought we'd all end up crammed in like sardines, but as it turned out several branches of the family were visiting other sides of their families this year so luckily there were fewer people than usual. As it was, it was a pretty decent number for the space available. There was a ton of stuff to eat -- I'd brought some nuts and a platter of cubed cheese and salami myself.

This year we started what could be a fun new tradition: the dice game. A long time ago we'd stopped buying gifts for everyone as the family was simply growing too large and nowadays usually only Grandma receives something from everyone. This year Carol called everyone a few days in advance and said she had an idea for a new game and to bring one or two small, unisex, inexpensive gifts (a lot easier than trying to think of what specific people need/want!). They were all wrapped and in a pile on the floor and we passed around 2 pie tins with 2 dice each in them. When the tin is passed to you, you roll the dice and if you get doubles you get to choose a gift from the pile. The tins are kept going around for a decided amount of time, and when the time is up everyone opens the gifts they have so far. Now we can see what everyone else has and the fun begins! We start passing the tins again, and this time when you roll doubles you can steal a gift from someone else's pile. Again, this round goes for a set amount of time and was hilariously fun as people kept stealing certain sought-after gifts back and forth. Kris and I kept taking a small flashlight from each other while some of the other "hot" items was a tin of homemade beef jerkey and a Nerf football. It was a great time, and I hope we'll do it again next year. It made the evening really enjoyable to relax and play a game together.

Jonas and I received a gift certificate to the Chanhassen Dinner Theater and a bottle of cider from Mom and Dean, money from Grandma and a serving tray, bowl, butter knives and an ornament from Dave and Peggy's family. From the game I came away with some peach stationery (woohoo, stationery!), a purple flashlight and some homemade soap.

Everyone started to clear out and head home not too long after the game had ended, so Jonas and I headed home too. When we got home we opened our gifts to each other. I'd ordered Jonas a tiny fridge to put on his desk at work (holds just 6 cans of pop) and also gave him an orange juicer. He got me an astronomy program for my computer and right away I dragged him outside to look at Jupiter and Saturn through my binoculars, but mine are kind of old and one of the lenses was chipped so we couldn't see much. I guess I need some new ones for Christmas next year. :)

Tuesday. Tuesday.

Not too much going on. After work I played some games, then all of a sudden, despite having a can of Pepsi, I got really sleepy. I went into the livingroom to watch TV and there was a documentary on the History Channel about Atlantis and the possible places it could have been. I started falling asleep again, so I went into the bedroom and took a nap. Of course, when I woke up I was groggy and disoriented as hell. :P~

Jonas called right before he left work and wondered if I was hungry. I was so he was going to stop by McDonald's and pick us up some. They were apparently closed by the time he got there, though, so he ended up having to get Wendy's. I'm not that fond of Wendy's so I didn't eat much. We both stayed up kind of late. I was playing The Sims and he was playing EverQuest. I ended up going to bed about 2 and reading for a little while.

Currently reading at home: To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

Slow day, mostly we just relaxed and played games. In the afternoon Jonas went out and bought a Gameboy so that'd he'd have something to do while on the plane. (He's flying to Sweden on Thursday until Monday.) He picked up 3 games for it: Zelda: Link's Awakening, Super Mario Bros. Deluxe and Game & Watch Gallery (or something like that). Over the weekend I've started playing Pharaoh again, so I played that some more. That was pretty much the entire day.

We went to Dad's to play Tripoli with him and my sister, so I got to see Dad's new puppy Maddie (short for Madeleine, I imagine, though I'm not sure as she was named by her previous owners). She's a red and white basset about 1 year old and really adorable. She's kind of skittish around strangers, though, so she wasn't exactly thrilled to see us. After a while when she thought we weren't watching, she'd come up and sniff or poke us with her nose, so at least she was curious. :)

Of course, I lost at Tripoli again. When we first started getting together to play I came out ahead frequently. Now I can't remember the last time I broke even. Not like we play big stakes (we each throw in $0.75 for 75 chips to start) so I'm not losing anything worth mentioning, but I'd still like to win sometimes!

Jonas and I went to Culver's for ice cream afterwards and then came home and watched part 1 of The Thorn Birds on video. Just part one was 144 minutes long, and there are 2 more parts! And he keeps mumbling about having to watch a 'girl movie.' :)