Thanks, Brenda!!

Nifty alternate lifestyle. I'm envious of that sort of freedom, but I know I'd be ill-suited to it.

Wait, was that her name?

Yeah, that's her. Spelt Cleo.

I kind of dig this cabinet/dresser: [link]

Oh, you know, guys like Pujols and Mauer. Seriously the A's don't have anybody with a slugging percentage over .500 and haven't had for a few years. The A's are 29th out of 30 teams in slugging. The Giants are 27th. No pop. No danger. The Giants are 29th in runs scored with 377. The Yankees are first with 512.

Hec: Okay. I misunderstood. I thought you were lamenting the lack of hitters in baseball, period. Hence confusion.

At least the Giants are fun to watch with Lincecum and Pablo (Kung Fu Panda) Sandoval and we've got a stud coming up next year with Posey. The A's have just been dispiriting to watch even with some talented young pitching. Too many guys hitting .240 or less. Feh.

Yeah. It's been the same way with the Cubs this year. One of the best offenses in the majors last year and this year they're struggling to score runs. The most frustrating thing about it is the Cubs starters are leading the majors in quality starts, they're just not getting the run support they need to actually win the games.

Lincencum is a lot of fun to watch (loved his sliding catch, complete with huge divot, on that foul pop last week) but I don't think I've seen Sandoval.

eta: To put it another way, the Yankees team slugging percentage (.469) is greater than that of any single A's player. Holiday is closest at .454.

Ouch. At least the Cubs are doing a little better than that, though not by a lot. Derrick Lee is the only regular with a slugging above .500 (.510) and the third place among the regulars is a pitcher with .457 (Of course, that pitcher is Zambrano, but still.)

Hey Kalshane! I don't see you around these parts much. Hi!

Hi, Meara! Yeah, sadly I don't have much free time to keep up around here (Gaming and Other Media are the only threads I follow that move slow enough for me these days) between work and family these days.

Plus, it's baseball season, so what free time I do have is spent yelling at the TV. (Which is doubly stupid because not only can the players not hear me, but I'm usually watching on DVR-delay, so everything already happened anyway.)

I have no guns. But I would like to learn to shoot one. Just because it seems like one of those things on a life list to check off. Like knowing how to drive a stick shift.

I don't own any guns, but I do know how to shoot them. Not so much with the actual hitting of the target, but I can fire them. My uncle taught me how to shoot his .22 when I was a teenager, and then we fired some different guns at my cousin's house in rural Indiana a few years back.

Driving stick, however, is still a mystery to me. One my girlfriends tried to teach me once, but I failed miserably.

Of course, her sitting on my lap and trying to guide me through the motions ended up being more distracting than instructive.

Last night Leif had his first ER visit. My wife took the kids up to the community center to swim. Apparently Leif was jumping into the pool and hit his head on a giant plastic turtle.

Ack! Scary, Gud. Glad it all turned out okay. We've had to take Mattias to the ER twice so far (once for blood where there shouldn't have been, and once the night we discovered he has a severe allergy to eggs) and neither were much fun.

And Emmett and I still like to go blow our money at the arcade, though now that he's got a Wii I'm wondering how long that will last.

Sadly, the last time I went to an arcade a few years ago, I was very disappointed. All the games there I either already had at home, or just wasn't interested in.

My friends and I used to go all the time when we were younger, and were especially exited once we were driving and discovered a nickle arcade 40 minutes away owned by Capcom that got all of their games before they hit wide-release. We spent many a weekend there. (Plus they had a crapload of older games in the back set to free play.) And when I worked in the mall at Monkey Wards, I used to spend my lunch breaks in the arcade there. I got to the point where I could play the original Time Crisis flawlessly at times.

I (continued...)

( continues...) found stick shift on cars very easy to learn, as I had much previous experience driving tractors.

Oddly enough, despite being able to drive my grandparent's ancient Ford tractor, it didn't translate to driving a car for me.

When I learn to drive later this summer, I am going to learn on an automatic. It will be easier.

Okay, am I the only one disappointed to learn that not only does Jilli not drive, but she doesn't tool around in a Stutz Bearcat?

Just got another recruiter that asked me to lie on my resume. Why do they bother? All I will do is give them a bad name.

Ack, ita. Sorry to hear you're still having to deal with recruiters, let alone really crappy ones.

Topic!Cindy, I'm sorry for your loss. Much peace and comfort ~ma to your whole family.

I'm so sorry Cindy.

Thanks WindSparrow, Burrell, Buffistas.

I'm sorry, Cindy.

Thanks, billytea.

Hey, on a WAY happier note, how's your little snookums, and how's the Wallybee?