BBQ Bonanza

So I decide to have two BBQ 'get-togethers' at my place over the Memorial Day weekend. I was so afraid of running out of food and room because I wanted to invite a bunch of people from work, and some friends of mine from church. I decided to split them up and have people from work over Sunday afternoon, and the other group Monday. That seemed to work out fine, except about half the people I expected to show didn't come. That's not horrible, except I was so afraid I'd run out of food - I overbought to be on the safe side, and have tons of food left over. At least I bought enough variety (hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken) to keep me happy the next two weeks I'm drowning in meat. I wonder how long that stuff's good for? I'll have to check expirations.

Food aside, I think it was a really good weekend with the parties. I love having my friends from work over, as they are always even more entertaining when they 'let their hair down' and relax (or in Scott's case - hide it under a ball cap). It was terribly warm both days though, so adjourning inside earlier would have been more sensible then sitting downwind of the flaming barbecue. I don't cook out that often anymore, so I had to borrow someone's grill - and it was one of those little tabletop varieties - no, not the George Foreman, but a little Weber grill. It was shooting out some decent flamage at one point which scared me. So I panicked and turned the grill down, and then couldn't figure out why the hot dogs wouldn't cook (it had gone out entirely by that point).

Since I was spending a lot of time cooking food on Sunday while people were there, I tried to reverse it Monday and get the food started before they came to speed things up. That didn't work too well either, because it turned out none of them were ready to eat yet. And they weren't ready for two hours. Maybe if I'd thrown a third party I would have figured out the right combination.

Anyway, I had a good time both days. I probably shouldn't have mentioned to EVERYONE coming that I had forgotten to buy buns for the burgers and dogs, because I now have 3 or 4 bags left. I guess I'll need them with all meat left. Now might be a good time to start that Akins diet again......

I forgot to mention something earlier. The landlord normally mows, waters and does yardwork every Saturday for several hours. I was almost afraid they wouldn't make it the weekend of the barbecues, since it rained. Never fear, they were here later mowing, and I assumed figured they didn't need to water thanks to the rain. On Monday, while my friends and I are sitting outside on the driveway (because they don't like us to have things on the lawn), trying to enjoy a memorial day celebration, the landlord's crew appears, flinging fertilizer everywhere. I was so stunned, my jaw was hanging open. They were nice enough to 'point it away from us' as they go around the building and come out behind where my grill was set up with the food sitting out. Thankfully covered. Then they started watering the lawn. We gave up and went inside, deciding to play a game and watch a video. We could hardly hear though thanks to the water pipes going, especially the groaning everytime they shut off the water to move it. There was a collective sigh when they finally shut if off.

Wired News: Your Thoughts Are Your Password

Wired News: Your Thoughts Are Your Password

The possibility is intriguing, but I'm trying to imagine logging on to my computer in the morning before I've had my coffee. And what if you're interrupted by the phone or someone in the process? I can see locking myself out of an account on a regular basis. "Your password has been changed to 'Who the heck is calling me NOW, when I'm right in the middle of working on [fill in the blank] project?' Good luck remembering that".

tabbed browsing in IE 6

While I'd been perusing Yahoo for some other things, I'd decided to try setting up "My Web 2.0" Beta from Yahoo. I updated my yahoo toolbar that I'd had turned off for ages so I could add stuff to the "My Web" pages. Once I did that I discovered a new feature included in IE - tabbed browsing. So far it looks and acts a lot like firefox's tabs, down to the scroll button opening a link in new tab. There is a purple plus icon next to the tabs to open a new tab, which loads a yahoo search page.

Haven't had a chance to explore the Web 2.0 much yet.

Addictive video games

I've always enjoyed playing video games, going through phases where I'd play one game nearly non-stop for a week to a month and then tire of it.

Among these are PC Games:

1. Neverwinter Nights
2. Elder Scrolls III (Morrowind) not Oblivion
3. Knights of the Old Republic

Game Cube:

1. Star Wars Lego
2. Pikmin (someday I'll remember to return that to Angela)
3. Zelda (any and all)

I'm sensing a trend that sorta shocks me. I never really thought that I like RPG's, and yet my top obsessive games are all that (well, single player versions at least). I do go through phases though - enought that despite not having finished the game, the icons have been removed by oh-so-helpful Windows to the "Unused Desktop Shortcuts" collection. Then I'll decide I want to see if I can get past that stuck point, and I'm playing it again all the time (Morrowind is experiencing that right now).

I can't really explain my latest addiction, and the one that prompted this post though. I dabble in the on-line games occassionally, but I thought they were all pretty much the same. If it wasn't a card game, it was some version of the matching game bejewelled. I didn't think much of that, and now I find this game on yahoo, and I can't stop playing it. I'm totally obsessed with it even though I don't really know what the goal is, other than to turn the backgrounds of the stamps all red. I want to line up 5 in a row, because that seems to get rid of a lot of them. I want to keep playing to see what happens after stage 4. I want to leave New York! I can't seem to get there though. Something weird happens in that stage (or maybe it's the next one)with umbrellas and rainy squares that intrigues me. I want to know if more things happen like that. It's not even a full game! I'm scared that I will want to download it, buy it, and grow more addicted until I eat sleep and dream swapping stamps. I work in a library, so I can see me out in the stacks swapping books on the shelves getting frustrated at why they won't dissolve so the next stack moves down and I can advance to the boss level.

That reminds me - I need to finish that javascript for the search page for my boss tomorrow....