Richard Lewis is ancient.

Why does that make me feel so old?

Various and Sundry

1. Kidzookie has his first loose tooth. He's excited. I feel old.
2. I've made absolutely zero progress on the second draft of my story. Do I have to kill myself if I fail to deliver on a suicide pact?
3. Now that I'm computing in the mobile world again, I don't use my office much. Kidzookie's almost of an age to use the computer anyway, and once that starts, I want it in a public part of the house. So I've relinquished my office. Wifezilla and I are going through the bonus room, clearing out all the shit I still haven't unpacked since we moved in, and getting ready to redecorate it as a rec room of sorts. That's hard fucking work, but it's been fun. I've found some shit I haven't seen in years. She's letting me have a beer fridge up there, so yay.
4. I got a call the other day from the gummint about an old friend of mine I'd lost touch with. He got laid off from BEA the same time I did, and disappeared off the face of the earth. Evidently, he took a new career path and is getting signed on as a federal agent of some sort now. Guess I can stop worrying about him. Same day I found out my friend suyapi passed the bar and is all but officially a Law Talkin' Guy. So apparently if you know me, good shit's coming your way. Make sure you guys save a little of that good karma for me.
   
5. Mario Kart Wii dropped today. The kidzookies and I have racked up some miles. Between Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and WoW, my marriage may be in danger.
   

God bless alcohol.

I tricked wifezilla into shacking up with me seven years ago today. Somehow, I've survived irritating the shit out of her for 2557 days. Those of you who know me understand what an accomplishment that is :)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand we're back.

Quicker than I expected, too. I'm sure there will be some hitches here and there, but it looks like I've restored the forums, everyone's accounts, everyone's posts, everyone's avatars, our smileys... the whole 9. Let me know as you find bugs, of course, but in the mean time... tear it up!

Do you want the bad news or the bad news?

The ongoing saga of Taco's fucked up webhost and subsequent migration: the backups I've made of the forums database are all corrupt. I can't restore the forums to include the accounts & posts. I'm going to have to do a clean install.

Fuck. I really really fucking hate my old webhost.

Folks who use my website, please read this

I can't post it there because in a nutshell, my webhost sucks ass. And a good chunk of the guys I need to notify read this filth too :)

My site is down for the bazillionth time, and I've had it with them. I'm getting a new webhost tonight. I've already picked them out, and will be signing up as soon as I get home. I've backed up all my data, and will start getting it migrated to the new service tonight. Once I have everything migrated to the new site, I'll formalize the migration and cut the old guys loose.

There'll probably be a few days where you can't use my site. I'm really sorry for the inconvenience, but once it's done, things should hopefully be a lot more reliable.

On the bright side, the bulk of this should fall across the weekend, when the site's mostly dead anyway.

Sorry for the trouble. Please bear with me.

Taco's tree is emo.

A few weeks ago, as I left the house, I heard a steady drip-drip-drip of water into the mulch by my driveway. I've been through the water leak thing before, and it sucks, so I heaved a great big sigh, dropped my shit off in the car, and went back to try to find the leak.

There was a spot of damp mulch about 2.5 or 3 feet in diameter where water was still dripping at a steady pace. The limbs of the tree were soaked where it was dripping.

Shit. Nightmare visions of my house spraying water out onto the tree. It would be just my luck.

Except... the dripping was on the side of the tree that faces away from my house. And once I started thinking about it, there isn't any plumbing anywhere near the tree. wtf?

I set a trash can under the drip (waste not, want not... we're in a nasty drought), went to work, and promptly forgot about it. Until I got home and found a surprising amount of water collected in the trash can, and a continuing steady drip.

So I googled, and it turns out that river birches do this. Evidently, they can get all worked up in the spring, overdo it, and drip water all over the damn place.

Seriously. My damn tree is emo. On the plus side, I probably won't have to trim it any more if it starts cutting itself.

If it starts writing bad poetry, I'm cutting it down.

A happy today, indeed.

Taco: Take my hand. We'll make it. I swear.

Wifezilla: You're weird.

Taco: Well, yeah.

Wifezilla: Got you a happy today present. And no, I can't tell you.

Taco: Cool, what is it?

Wifezilla: Shut up. And there's two of them.

Taco: Omg is it boobs? I hope it's boobs.

Wifezilla: No. But maybe I can put them on top of my boobs.

Taco: Best. Wife. Evar.