12:04 AM
Writing late at night at the end of another bad week around here.
Jumping right in here, the majority of the week was spent worrying about my dad. Early in the week he started passing out and falling down. Since he’s well over 250 lbs. neither my mom nor myself could get him back on his feet. Even when it was both of us we’d have trouble getting him back up.
Wednesday morning he fell down and hit his head. We ended up calling and ambulance and he went to the hospital where they found nothing wrong with the CAT scan, but they did find that his sodium and potassium levels were dangerously low and that he should be in a coma.
He spent most of the rest of the week in and out of a dream state. Most of the time he was claiming that my mom was his 2nd wife Wendy. Mind you that he doesn’t have a 2nd wife, and the only Wendy he knows is my barber’s daughter, but who knows at this point. I’m sure I’d have some strange dreams too if I were in that condition.
This is the 4th out of 5 years he’s been in the hospital for Thanksgiving since we’ve lived up here. I wasn’t surprised and we’ll see later this week if this was his doing or if it was something else this time. I have my doubts, just due to the fact that every time Thanksgiving rolls around something happens.
In other news, this week we saw the squatters come out as a squatter nabbed LauraBurstein.com. Details are in a thread on Leoville. She was able to convince the person to let her have the name (and not follow up on her threat of legal action), and while she didn’t share details let me tell you this: there’s nothing worse than a squatter. She was working hard on getting her LauraBurstein.com up and going and the squatter beat her to registering the name by hours. There are no excuses for this person’s actions and since she posted on Leoville, it must have been a fan who did this, and that really gets to me.
We are all fans of TechTV. That’s why we make web sites like this, that’s why you’re reading this blog, and that’s why we know folks like Laura. Though she was one of those let go by TechTV on Black Friday, the fact is that she’s still popular and active among the community. She’s going through a very tough time and even though Leo promised on Leoville that he’d see about getting her as the site of the night girl and she could possibly be back one day, she’s still going through a tough time and doesn’t deserve this kind of treatment. As fans we should all condemn the squatter’s actions for praying upon the situation in her time of need. There’s no excuse.
Finally, believe it or not, TechTV keeps moving on after the events of Black Friday. While reruns are not my bag, TechLive is still there and the evening shows were relatively untouched. I’ve seen a lot of “alternative” attempts at communities spring up over the past week, but I’m not going anywhere. If I want to take part in chats I’ll be at TechTV.com. The rooms might be totally empty during the day, but hey, TechTV is not the enemy. They need all the fans they can get right now and as much as I’m pissed at them for hurting friends of mine, the only way there’s going to continue to be a TechTV is with our support.
On that note, I’m out for another evening.
k9
8:58 AM
More little updates on a Sunday morning.
* Yesterday I finally finished stacking the gosh darn wood. I usually have it done by early fall but this year thinks kept coming up. For example, Wednesday, I got out to the stack and was getting into getting it done when … yell from behind, it was my mom, my dad had fallen. I was in my work clothes (looking like a cross between a inner city hoodster and a lumberjack), to answer the door for the EMTs.
* Of the x-box titles I got after launch here’s some initial thoughts.
Cell Damage: Kid Friendly. A couple of risque jokes, but otherwise tame. It’s like a cartoon twisted metal. It’s not as deep as twisted metal, but hey, it’s good fun and if you need a kid friendly game for the system — this is it.
NFL Fever: The graphics (other than the occasional J-Lo butt on the linemen), are spectacular. Game play is okay. Kicking is hard because you have no control over the direction. The indicator quickly goes from left to right and you sort of have to wait until it gets to the right spot to hit the button. That’s easier said than done. I keep missing easy extra points because they’re a hair off. Also, one big PITA. When you look to see your receivers for some reason the B and A receivers are on the left side of the lineup while they’re on the RIGHT side of the controller and the Y and X receivers are left side of the controller and RIGHT side of the lineup. So you’re thinking of pressing left when you need to press right and vice versa. The game’s not deep and is good if it comes with the system, but I’m replacing it with NFL2k2 for Xbox as soon as it comes out.
Halo: You’re probably tired of hearing how great this game is. All the praise is deserved. If you get the Xbox and are into first person shooters. GET THIS GAME.
Project Gotham Racing: Graphics are spectacular. I’ve never been into driving games so this one would have probably not been a buy if it hadn’t come with the package I got when I bought the system. I guess it plays like GT3 and from what I’ve seen of GT3 it has waaaaaaaaaay better graphics.
Dead or Alive 3: It’s the soul caliber of the system. Not deep at all but BEAUTIFUL. The play is fast so button mashing is required.
Overall: The controller does take some getting used to after prolonged exposure to it. I still one for the old style Sega controllers. They were small and easy to use. A modified Sega Saturn controller would be perfect. Add twin analog sticks like on a PS2 controller and I’d be in heaven (though all PS controllers suck IMODO).
* Heard from Robyn Huggiebear this week. She was on screen savers and I missed her in chat when she was going to pop in Wednesday night. Hopefully they’ll put up a list of scheduled chats for regulars to figure out what the heck is going on.
On that note,
k9
5:24 PM
More mini-updates:
* Got a notice that we were either going to be featured or already featured in a Lockergnome.com newsletter and the right to put the little graphic up. Hey, my policy is that if you plug us, we’ll put your little graphic up. As long as it’s not porn or what have you.
* On the porn front, while I’m appreciative of those who would like to post porn links here — they’re gong to be nuked if I see them in the guest book. We might be pretty dead right now, but we’re not a porn spamming site just yet.
* New Poll went up. Old poll should be dying. But it refuses to die right now so go ahead and vote while you can because it will be going away soon.
* Links area is updated again. We might be taking down sites that we no longer support, or sites that are down in the near future. I know of one in particular that’s about to go because it’s page not found. If you’d like to see your site featured here, e-mail me.
* Laura Burstein is auctioning off some swag over on e-bay. You can get to it by using this link: List of Laura’s Ebay stuff.
* The official picture retirement is coming SOON. So if you need pictures, e-mail me at reallycoolsite@aol.com and we’ll hook you up with what you need. Again, you need to have (c) 2001 TechTV with all the pictures and please credit James Knine.
And those be our updates on this Sunday.
k9
10:57 PM
Last updates of the day as I’m watching the Bears vs. Vikings and hoping that my best friend is somewhere out there doing backflips again.
They released my dad from the hospital today. I really think it was a mistake and while he’s kind of walking, he’s really unstable and we could all have used today for a day of rest.
I know I know, it would have been unfair to keep him another day if he was okay to go home, but after having a house full of people and a little break from the day to day of having to deal with all of his recent problems, today would have been nice if we had a day or two to regroup and get ready to deal with the next round of his situation.
It wasn’t meant to be. Already he’s trying to mess with the fire and he’s shed his jeans and regular clothes in favor of the same grotesque pair of shorts that keep falling off of him and a t-shirt. He’s right back to where he was last week, sans falling down, and seeing him like this. I just don’t know what happens next here.
k9