We Wish You A Merry..... Whatever!

At this festive time of year I'd like to wish you and yours an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most joyous traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, but with respect for the religious persuasion of others who choose to practice their own religion as well as those who choose not to practice a religion at all;


Additionally accept my wishes for,


a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the generally accepted calendar year 2010, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions have helped make our society great, without regard to the race, creed, color, religious, or other preferences or practices, sexual or otherwise, of the wishers.

(Disclaimer: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and no responsibility for any unintended emotional stress these greetings may bring to those not caught up in the holiday spirit.)

New Year's Eve Through Midnight

Tails and I continued to watch TV and relax. As it got closer to 8 PM when people would be arriving I started getting the cold appetizers ready. I made a big platter adding the imported dried salami after slicing it and removing the peppercorns. To this I added two rows of crackers and assorted cheese cubes (Swiss, Colby. and Cheddar). I put out bowls of Potato Chips, Peanut M&M's, Mini Tortilla chips shaped like little bowls and spiced with just a hint of Jalapeno, Cheddar Goldfish crackers, a box of assorted truffles, and several things for dipping/spreading including double cream spread, spinach dip, and sour cream with onion soup.

Scooby Snax got nothing on these

Sadly, because of the way he was feeling Mom and Dad could not make it, and my older boy, as expected, was going out with friends. So that left myself, Scott, Danielle, the X, Kevin, Lili, and Lucy.

Once everyone had arrived I had also finished off my quick version of Chili Con Caso dip. I basically take some prepared taco ground beef (several companies sell this in little plastic tubs at the store) and heat it until it is warm. I then add some cubed Velveeta cheese and heat again until the cheese is melted, and then stir. Everyone (except Scott) loved this dip and it went pretty fast. There was a lot of the aforementioned dips and such left over but the Con Caso went pretty fast.

Uncle Kevin is very allergic to certain pet dander, and one of his eyes had swollen up alarmingly! I heard how he had sat for hours in the X's office using her computer. I asked how he could sit in a room with a cage of Guinea pigs being allergic to them....his reply was that he had work that had to be done....I would have moved the pigs or the computer! He looked awful and I felt bad for him as it was plain it was really bothering him during the course of the evening.

Ewwwww! Someone's been around the Guinea Pigs!!

Everyone partook of some snacks and while conversation was going on I showed Kevin the program I use to store and track my DVD collection. He was quite impressed because you can view the collection it a list, or by DVD cover images, you can search for titles by Movie Name, Actors, Genre, and a lot of other criteria, and once you've selected a movie you can also see full color pictures of the front and back covers along with detailed information on the movie, actors, description, and all this is populated for each DVD automatically via the UPS Bar Code of each DVD.

The others came wandering into the living room and we settled in to watch Eagle Eye which I though was excellent! I have been doing pre-installation work pulling old cables for my new AV receiver, which is supposed to arrive today. At the time I thought I had accidentally pulled off one of the wrong wires because the sound from the computer (which I used to play my DVDs from) was terrible. It turned out that while moving things around I had changed the audio processing options of the current receiver by pressing one of the recessed buttons. Funny how it only affected the computer and the the fiber optic TV service. Anyway, we ended up watching the movie off the XBOX 360 using the speakers on the plasma display for sound. Nowhere near as good as the sound from the AV receiver, but, more than usable in a pinch!

Posed pictures of the kids do just not work!!

I was also having some trouble getting used to having an XBOX game controller control the movie. This was the first time I have ever used the XBOX as a DVD player, so a few times I overshot chapters accidentally. I did what I could, such as providing funny squeaky voices as I fast forwarded to get to the right point.

About halfway through this week took and intermission where I started the hot appetizers (four types of mini egg rolls, Jalapeno and cream cheese poppers and breaded chicken and bacon nuggets. For Scott i made a bowl of Ramon, and then one for Lili after I mentioned there was more once she had seen Scott's. I was pleased I had chop sticks to offer her which she prefers.

Lili enjoys a steaming bowl of Ramon Noodles

Once the hot appetizers came out of the oven we filled out plates and returned to the movie which everyone enjoyed the movie and even Scott got sucked in. He had started by sitting on the couch playing his portable Nintendo. I like that about Scott, even if what we are doing in the living room is not to his liking most often he will come and sit with us anyway while he plays his portable game system.

We finished the movie a bit shy of midnight and so then we started going through the various networks looking for something to watch. Some teen heartthrob boy band was playing on all the networks which really rubbed the musical appreciation of our older viewers the wrong way! Unable to find anything to watch in the interim I put it on mute and everyone made fun of the band by providing their own vocals and sound effects.

The X had brought a bottle of sparkling lemonade which my daughter had wanted to we watched the countdown and the ball dropping in Times Square and toasted in the New Year with that particular beverage!

A bit after midnight, every one headed out. Tails and I stayed up until about 1:30 AM before returning.

Here's hoping for a Happy, Safe, Joyous, and Prosperous New Year for us all!

New Year's Eve Day Through 5 PM

Another day like quite a few others...up late last night, though I slept better, awakening at 8 AM and rather than rising, chose to spend an hour in bed watching some holiday video on demand programming.

After releasing tails and starting a load of wash, I got on the computer for awhile. Around 10 AM or so my friend Josh IM'd me from work and asked if I wanted to do lunch and offered to bring lunch to the house here. How could I say no to such a gracious offer from such a good friend? I told him I still had to exercise and then clear the snow outside, so we settled on a noon lunch time. I rode the exercise bike, watching...can you guess.... the second half of an Iron Chef America, and then since I needed to cool down from the 8 mile ride, I did some cleaning in the kitchen and living room.

I was just going to shovel the snow but after seeing the amount of snow outside was greater than I had anticipated I decided there was enough to snow blow, so I did the driveway and the front walks of my house and my next door neighbor's, and came back inside.

Josh arrived promptly and we enjoyed an excellent lunch from Panera Bread, and some good conversation about the holidays, work, etc. After lunch I showed Josh the cinematic intro for Left 4 Dead which is quite excellent, and then I showed him the game play for a few minutes. I also showed him the database management program I keep my DVD collection under.

As Josh was working today he departed back to the office, returning about 20 minutes later for the badge he had left here! I thanked him again for lunch and got on the computer. It was really good to see and have lunch with him today.

Around 2 PM the X called, I had invited the family over here for New Year's Eve instead of going into the cold city this evening. As I had had heard nothing back I just assumed they were going ahead with their original plans but the X asked if my offer was still good.

I said it was, and I finished the campaign of Left 4 Dead I was playing. At 3 PM I decided I'd better get out to the store for snacks and hot and cold appetizers for this evening. Forest Hills Foods was a mad house! A FREAKING MADHOUSE! You'd think the Storm of the Century was coming or something. I lucked out and got a space at the very end of the parking lot while watching many other cars circling like sharks looking for an opening. I did my shopping and escaped as fast as I could! Had I know yesterday they were coming I would have gone out to the store early this morning....oh well...not a big deal.

Returning home I unpacked the bags, threw in another load of wash and retired to the couch where Tails immediately jumped up and settled down in my lap, where she still remains.