Gonzai Gallery

Very done. Burned a bunch of DVDs, labelled and filed them. Put away two years' worth of paperwork into the appropriate folders and boxes and produced quite a large amount of stuff for the recycling and shredder bins in the process. Went to dinner with Mom, it went better this time and she discovered she likes corned beef. Went house-looking, 3 very nice ones, 1 horrid one and 1 where they wouldn't let us in. Gated community. Claimed they had no idea what we were talking about...and made us back out of a narrow, curving driveway rather than let me turn around, which took 10 minutes and some of my fender. (I checked, the house was listed as open on 3 different realty sites. I wonder how many more people they put through crap.) I told the guard I wouldn't want to live in a place like that and I sure wouldn't subject my friends to it. Assholes. Went to one of the local family markets for the first time, they were expensive but had some offbeat things and a lot of catering options. Caught up with TV. And movies. Three of 'em. Knocked out 'Deer Hunter' (which in turn could have been an hour shorter with no harm done), 'Sunrise' (likewise) and 'The Third Man', which I've seen before but it's damn good movie so I watched it again. I do highly recommend that one to anyone who likes a good mystery/film noir.

Almost, I decided to pass on making it three straight days of gaming. But I went Friday and Saturday, played a bunch of games, learned two new ones and ate a ton. That being the case, and also today being absolutely beautiful, I took Mom to look at a couple of houses (the one I was interested in was meh, the ones I picked for logistical reasons were fab), we ate frozen yogurt on a patio, and then home to watch football. Except I just couldn't get into the football, so I watched 'Full Metal Jacket' instead. Not entirely the same thing.

Every year, I have more and more trouble coping with the heat. It's one of the big reasons I gave up baseball, I just couldn't hack it outside all day. Last Sunday at the softball game, I hung in there as it wasn't quite 80 degrees. Today...it was 96 at one point. The car's AC was going full blast, I'm sucking down a giant frozen coffee, and after looking at four houses, I couldn't take the heat anymore. Less than 3 hours, mostly in AC and with a cold beverage, and I'm down. Canada looks better all the time, I tell ya.

Today was low 70s and sunny, in late April. Screw sitting in a hotel all day playing games. For that matter, forget the art & craft show. We went and saw a few open houses, did some grocery shopping and visited a farm stand, talking the back roads for all of the above. One of the houses...I swear, they were giving away something, although the realtor swore it was only cookies. I've never seen more than 3 sets of people at a house at a time, well this time there were two cars leaving as we pulled in, two cars coming in behind us and 7 sets of people already there. 4 more came while we there. Crazy busy. The owners had left a dog in the inlaw apartment, Mom wants both the apartment AND the dog. If it were just that apartment, it would have been a great apartment. Add 3.5 acres, 3 car garage, and a 4,000 sf house, wow. I want this house.

Now we're home trying to clear the DVR (3 days of shows to catch up on) and decompress from a big day.

Tis the season for open houses, and I'm busy most Sundays. And today was in the 80s and mostly sunny. So I blew off gaming and took Mom to see houses. We managed six of them, and not a bad one in the bunch. Two of them, if I had the money I'd take them right now. And the interesting thing was, both of them were 'contemporary' style homes (which Mom usually doesn't like) and both made a lot of use of colors on the grayscale. The first managed to make dark gray carpets and walls homey. The second was almost all black and white, but done so well we didn't even miss color. Afterwards we went to Carrabbas for dinner, then came home and watched a movie. Mom is very happy :)

The football game is just not holding my interest. And the commercials have been either mundane or stupid. So pooh on that, switching to 31 Days of Oscar. 'The Lavender Hill Mob', specifically. We've already watched the Puppy Bowl 1.5 times and cleared the tv shows off the DVR, plus took care of a lot of paperwork and computer stuff, experimented with food (tried to cook artichokes for the first time, they turned out decently), did some cleaning, and looked at one house that had a stunning kitchen but way too many stairs, steep ones at that. Yesterday I finally was able to go to gaming again, didn't get to play too much between being tired and a couple games taking way too long to play. But I played a bit and got a few things done so I can't fault the weekend entirely.