Spent the past weekend with my father and brother and Amy (or is it Aimee?) in the far north. Brought Elizabeth with us because she would be spending the next few days with Papaw and Nanna (the designated nicknames for her paternal grandparents). We surprised Dad with a Blu-Ray player and The Dark Knight, and for those who may have missed it, I take it back, I was wrong, movies in HD are god damned sexy. Now, the gift I was expecting was the Logitech G15 keyboard, and I'm very happy with it. I'm also very happy for my Dr. Pepper pajama bottoms, which are full of win. Then, Robin lays it on me, the device that has caused me to begin rearranging my life.

Holy Jumpin' Messiah, this thing is sexy. the iPod Touch is Apple's greatest accomplishment, devious in its inception. Get this: it's an iPhone without the phone. When a wifi signal is around it can do my email, my task lists, check up on MySpace and Facebook and Twitter. On top of that, it plays music too (you know, it's an iPod after all). When I don't have a wifi signal (like, when I'm at work) it can play music, and some of the apps actually cache their info so I can view older information. What a tease! I drool over the idea of finding a free wifi hotspot - I realize that I just need an iPhone. Robin, I love you, this gift is amazingly awesome, but you've just handed me a new hardware addiction that I can't afford!

Oh, so yeah. Facebook. All about Facebook. All the social awesomeness of MySpace, none of that annoying-dear-god-my-eyes, those colors will blind you, Christ-Almighty your music sucks, stop blaring it at me, holy Christ how many pictures of sparkles and fairies can you load on this shitty page of yours bullshit that is all that MySpace is. Facebook is what MySpace would be when it graduates high school and looks back on itself and says, "Man. I was a douche."

So Dad had Elizabeth until today, and he snuck her off to a photo studio to have pictures made. Honestly? No bias, my baby is the cutest bebeh evar. Fact. It's Science, folks, you can't argue with it. Cutest. Ever. Yes, cuter than that. Go ahead and see for yourself. The pics are big and unlicensed, so feel free to print them out. They make good billboards, or carvings for the moon. Cutest. Ever.

Went bowling with CJ and Tori yesterday (pictures are also on my Picasa page). It was a great, great time. Tori almost beat her brother, even. Bumper lanes were up and Tori got to use the rail-ramp cause them balls are heavy. I picked them up at 8am and we had breakfast at IHOP. Then we went bowling. Hey. Ever gone bowling before work? No, didn't think so. Hey. Ever gone bowling before noon? Yeah, I didn't think so either. We did. We bowled from 9:30am to 11:00am, and then I went to work. That's not natural! It was fun, and I hope I can see CJ and Tori again soon, but, bowling before noon just isn't something you should do past the age of thirty.

On a sad note, today I moved the last of my stuff out of the old house. The electricity has been transferred out of my name, and today I arrived to find no juice. This is a shame, because today I was there specifically to vacuum and wash the counters, and with no juice to run the pump, there'd be no water. My only consolation is that last night as Vickie was getting the last of her things, she cast her gaze (full of disdain it was!) upon me and opined that she would do cleaning that night because I (obviously) couldn't be trusted to finish the job today. The fact that I was physically unable to clean today (depite being there on time, and getting all other cleaning done) will do no more than confirm her suspicions that I am lazy and good-for-nothing and unreliable - this doesn't bother me. I am deeply amused at the turnout though. For a time, I thought, "Oooo, I'll show her! I'll clean that whole house!"

I've said it before. If you can't smile when life tosses one at your teeth, you deserve the busted lip.

(wtf does that even mean? I've never said that before!)

Life also tossed another good one at me today. See... and here's the short version... I withdrew a bunch of money on Friday to make some payments, evelopes of cash. Well, one of those payments couldn't be made it cash, so a check was written for the same amount and that night I deposited the envelope o'cash back into the bank using an ATM. That deposit on Friday night finally cleared TODAY. The weekend was spent shuttling all the cash I had from savings accounts (overdraft savings at that!) to prevent it from going under. Unfortunately, I must've missed something, because it went under. Today. Badly. And tomorrow's charges will go through and drive me further under. I have the cash in my pocket now to keep it positive, if it weren't for the NSF fees. So many of them, each at about $38. Ridiculous.

And, by the way. This was *almost* the first December in five years that I didn't have NSF fees. It was a yearly ritual for Vickie and I, just about each year racking up more than $200 in NSF fees after Christmas. I haven't gone into the negs since Vickie moved out, and I almost escaped December. Figures on the last day it'd hit me with a vengence.

*shrug*

Thank you, God, thank you. 2008 is finally over. This was easily the worst year of my life.

What new surprises lie in store?