Well, I survived the double workload at work and snowstorm (and shoveling) last week and am mostly recovered from the cough I caught after Thanksgiving. Just in time to get a flu shot today… I hope your holidays are healthier than mine have been so far.
Janice's parents' visit went well this past weekend. On Saturday, 10 December 2005, we belatedly celebrated her birthday and went to the Bay Colony Dog Show at the Bayside Expo Center in Boston. We'll be seeing them and the rest of Janice's immediate family for Christmas in Upstate New York in a few weeks, but I don't know when I'll get down to Virginia or metropolitan New York.
Yesterday, Janice and I went to the malls near where I work in Framingham, Massachusetts, and finished most of our holiday shopping, which we began online. I'm still behind in writing cards, so they may be late this year…
Our basement looks decent again, although I'm still waiting on the sump pump. Brian W., Byron V.O., Thomas K.Y., and Atilla C. have all helped with hosting duties for the D&D3.5 "Vanished Lands: Seekers of Lore" heroic fantasy game, and I'm almost done compiling various lists of damaged or destroyed gaming and comic books.
We're waiting until this coming Saturday (Dec. 17) to screen "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," hopefully with some of the local gaming/social group. Even though I own the extended DVDs of the "Lord of the Rings," I couldn't help rewatching the movies as they've been airing on TNT. We genre fans are lucky to be in a generation during which "Star Wars," "Lord of the Rings," and several other excellent films have been released. "Syriana" and "King Kong" also look promising, but Janice isn't particularly interested, and our time and money are limited.
If you like the outrageous humor of "South Park" or "The Dave Chapelle Show," you might enjoy "The Boondocks," an adaptation of the newspaper comic strip shown late Sunday nights on the Cartoon Networks' Adult Swim. I haven't been watching much regular broadcast television lately, but I'm looking forward to the return of long-running "Stargate SG1" and the revisionist "Battlestar Galactica" next month. In the meantime, I'm curious whether anybody besides Steve M.R. is reading this, so drop me a line and let me know… -Gene
Gene's Worlds 