My rainy day craft box

So I'm watching that awesome TV series "Vikings" and there's a battle relatively early in the first season where the titular villain-protagonists are assaulted by a larger Saxon force. The Vikings make the sensible decision to form a shield wall. This is the dialogue I MST3K'd for the leader of the Saxon force:

"Archers! Do that one thing that is useless against a shield wall!"

*Archers shoot arrows at the shields, to no effect.*

"Infantry! Do that other thing that is useless against a shield wall!"

*Archers run right at the shield wall and begin dying.*

"Men who could outflank the shield wall with our superior numbers! Just keep trying to move forward in a straight line! Wait, maybe have one guy run around the shield wall!"

*One guy runs around it; dies.*

"Okay, maybe have another guy try to run around it!"

*Another guy runs around it; dies.*

"Um... New plan! Everyone just sort of die and I will ride home and tell our king the enemy is too strong!"

*Rides away; does just that.*

It's amazing we're not all speaking Futhark right now.

I keep really wanting to post LJ entries but find myself without the energy to do so after a long day's work. Of course that is frustrating because busy days are when the most stuff worth blogging about happens.

M. and I are gradually getting moved into the new house. We still have an overwhelming amount of work to do there but I'm hoping this week to take a big bite out of it. We really don't have that much to move: there's a lot of big heavy stuff that it would just be cheaper and easier to replace than to move so we're leaving it here. But cleaning up the house really will be a chore. Part of me looks forward to the task but mostly I look forward to having it finished.

I had to replace my mp3 player because the one I had got crushed somehow. In hindsight, carrying it in my pocket at work was about the stupidest thing I could have done. I wound up buying a another Sansa Fuse, this time a used one off of Amazon. I was reluctant to buy a used mp3 player but all the new ones in my price range lacked a port for additional memory and the Fuse has really spoiled me with that. So I rolled the dice and took my chances. It got here in record time and while I've only had it since yesterday, I've got to say I think this Fuse works better than my old one did when it was new. I am very pleased and oh MAN does it feel good to be able to listen to music on my breaks at work again. I was getting pretty irritable not having that option. It has left me unable to do any writing at work. I find I really need to get between my headphones in order to be able to achieve the focus necessary for writing. It has been difficult to resist the urge to just put my headphones on and leave them there.

Having learned my lesson I ordered a carrying case for this player. It hasn't arrived yet but I am being extra careful in the meantime and not carrying it on my person at work. I don't normally get excited over Amazon sellers. Most of the time I barely even look at their name, I just order the product and forget about them, but I am really pleased with the fast service and getting such an (apparently) good deal. The control wheel is pretty scratched up but it the actual functionality of the player seems sound in all respects. My old player was blue, this one is red. So when it lights up it looks like a bad guy from TRON instead of a good guy from TRON but that is okay. Also, the red coloring is appropriate given that it is a Sansa :)

My mom won big at the casino yesterday so today my parents treated themselves to two new flat screen TV's. I feel they've earned it, especially since my mother recently lost about two thirds of the money in her work profit sharing. It was money she had been planning to put toward new TV's after the first of the year once she was sure it wouldn't be needed to pay taxes. But it all got taken away from her. I told her that she is the 99%. She wasn't aware of the Occupy Wall Street situation so I got to tell her about it and we had a nice little discussion on economics in this country. Anyway, I am glad some serendipity happened for my parents. She won almost exactly the amount of money as she lost out of her profit sharing and they were able to get what they've been wanting after all. Of course it makes me very wistful because I still want a second bass and a second six-string even though I no longer have a band to play with, but with moving money will be extremely tight for a while. Still, we need goals to work for and seeing other people get the things they want is good motivation to go after the things you want a little harder.

Speaking of, I have work to do. I hope everyone had a good weekend.

I forgot to mention in my last entry that my mom decided to treat us all (her, my dad, my wife, and I,) to cell phone upgrades since we're all on the same plan and Verizon was having a sale. The sale was only on the LG Chocolate model so that's what I got. The slide-open style and touch-sensitive "buttons" take a lot of getting used to. (I've previously only used flip-open phones with push buttons.) But anything is better than the Razr I've had for the last two years. Razrs are nothing but trouble and even the guy at the Verizon store said they've had nothing but problems with them. Anyway, yeah, LG Chocolate is very high tech and all the moving parts make me afraid it's going to transform into a Decepticon head on spider legs. My Razr was on its last robot spider leg and this new one was free for me so I am actually very thankful.

( Thoughts on the premier of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles )