So I thought I'd post my Thanksgiving weekend actions, since some of it is a follow up to my last two journals. The rest, however, is fairly pointless.


_Thursday
Thanksgiving was...Thanksgiving. It was my first full day off work in a long time (almost a month, I think), which I had to spend over at my parents. My step-mother cooked, there was turkey and semi-strangers. Nothing particularly interesting.

Sometime around this time, however, Crystal got a bug to grab Guitar Hero 3 (which I blame on my gay lover friend Jared for bringing by Rock Band on Tuesday). This was supposed to be MY Chan-mas present, but, whatever....so we went shopping after we left my parents. Now, being Thanksgiving, nothing but Walmart was open...and all the Walmarts sell the jank version of the bundle with the Guitar Hero 2 controller. It's a ripp-off, be warned.


_Friday
On Black Friday we decided to give another go at the whole Guitar Hero 3 thing. First up was Toys R Us across from Crystal's work. There was a 4 hour line to ENTER the electronics department. That's just TO START SHOPPING! Crystal had to work, I wasn't waiting....we left.

After dropping her off I went to be a good bf and spent the morning hunting down [what's now] her Chan-mas present. I went to 2 Gamestops, a Circuit City, and even a Radio Shack...all were a bust. However, I still had a trick up my sleeve. I tapped into my vast gaming knowledge and remembered the ONE PLACE that sells video games and wouldn't have ANY line on this unholy shopping day....Blockbuster. I just strolled in, asked for one, brought it home. SO simple.

Of course I lied to her and said I couldn't find it when I picked her up (which, BTW, I'm getting really good at....it should scare her) so that I could surprise her with it once we got back to the apartment.

Then I went to work. *sigh*

Crystal tried to make everything up to me (i.e. buying her MY Chan-mas present) by taking me out to Outback. Yeah yeah...I like Outback, so sue me. Of course, my love of the place was quickly tempered once the waiter spilled the contents of my drinking glass all over my lap. The manager gave us a coupon for a free desert in the future...but that really didn't help my wet sticky pants. *sigh...again*


_Saturday
Saturday I had to bring Crystal to work at 5am and then go to MY work until 2pm. Around lunch I WAS able to bring Crystal (and Guitar Hero 3) to my work and we had fun playing the XBox on the big projection screen in the conference room. Boss lady and boss man got pizza. Food was eaten.

Later we had a party to attend. Everyone was supposed to wear pink...I was the only one who didn't (go me). And the party was just people sitting awkwardly around eating pink food (it was dyed), listening to extremely loud children, and watching football (neither activity I approve of, BTW). My night, however, was also spent trying to keep Crystal from killing me because I brought her to said event.

After the party we went to Best Buy so Crystal could buy me MY gift. It came down to Super Mario Galaxy (Wii), Scene It (360), or an USB HDTV tuner for my PC. "U R MR GAY" was turned down because I now have Mass Effect (360) and GH3 (360) having my attention and Scene It was ignored because of the simple fact that no one would ever play a trivia game with me (I really just wanted the buzzers for MY trivia game). So I ended up getting the HD TV tuner (pretty good deal at $40--after $20 off) for my computer.

I spent the remainder of the night attempting to install MythTV on my [now] Ubuntu box. Linux seemed to SEE the HDTV tuner....but didn't actually let it tune in to anything. Plus, contrary to what I've been previously told, MythTV turned out to be a glitchy piece of shit...


_Sunday
...Which prompted me to just reinstall Vista on the computer Sunday (after I got home from work). It hurt (a little) to wipe out my Ubuntu OS (I just figured out how shit installs!), but it's my "media center" now, and Ubuntu doesn't seem to work well as a media center.

Yes, I know I can go buy an HDTV tuner that would work under Linux....but I don't want to invest any money in Linux things. It's a great OS...as long as it's free. I'd still recommend it if you have an OLD PC that needs an OS face lift....but it couldn't do what I needed to do once I got to the more advanced functionality.

I have to say, though, that once I went back to Vista I was happier. I don't have to spend half my time hunting online for a "fix" or "hack" to make something run in Linux...it just worked. I still need to try the HD side of the tuner, but I have to say that the Media Center program that comes with Vista has ALL the features I loved in my Tivo (and a few more) and now I have a machine that can download video podcasts, watch web TV (Joost), AND lets me watch high quality HD TV for FREE (SUCK IT BRIGHT HOUSE!).