News & Updates in 2003

Other than a few minor corrections, I haven't made any new anime updates yet. Just been too busy. And on Thursday I found out that Pacesetter called the company that hosts my sites and tried to have my PacesetterSucks.com site shut down. Luckily, Gary, the guy in charge, is cool and refused to take it down. However, this forced me to contact everyone who has sent in Pacesetter stories and ask them to swear that everything they said in their story was absolutely true. Any story that I could not confirm was true, I removed from the site.

In home news, Chuck had his court date this week and was sentence to something like one-to-three years, with parole available in like six months. Christy has got cable and a phone line hooked up in her room, and is slowly moving her stuff out from the garage. Today she, her daughter, her niece, Treeses, and I all went to a barbecue for people who helped out on Cool April Nights. They had thinly sliced beef, french bread, salad, little back of Cheetos, and a chili/beans type thing. It was all very plain. There was like no seasoning at all on any of it. Yesterday I actually got outside and cleaned out the drainage gutters along the front roof. It was nasty. There were actually weeds growing out of that stuff. I'll probably get the back half of the house next weekend.

Added the anime profiles of .hack//sign and Naruto. Added the character profiles of Fuu Hououji and Hikaru Shidou (both from Magic Knight Rayearth), Yoh Asakura (from Shaman King), Tsukasa (from .hack//sign), Tien (from Dragon Ball Z), Meryl Stryfe and Milly Thompson (both from Trigun), and Filia Ul Copt (from The Slayers TRY). Added additional descriptions for the anime characters Goku and Trunks (both from Dragon Ball Z).

We've been quite busy this week due to some events that have taken place involving Treese's friend, Christy. It all started around Sunday evening. Christy was over visiting that night, and we all watched Ghost Ship. After she took off, we snuggled up and watched some TiVo. Oh yeah, and that was also the night that we put some blue coloring in my hair. Anyway, later that evening, she returned quite unexpectedly. She was very hyper, and one of the first things she said was that Chuck (her husband) was in jail. As it turns out, her alcoholic, drug-addicted husband had accused her of cheating on him... with my wife. Yeah, I know what you're thinking: "How can that be? Alcoholic drug-addicts are always so calm and logical." Well who know, but they got into a fight over this absurd accusation, and he ended up completely destroying the inside of their house and then smashing a beer can on her chest, which left quite a mark. So she called the cops and had him arrested.

Later on that evening, she actually said that she regretted having him arrested. Oh, big surprise there, considering that anyone who has ever watched any TV dramas about battered wives could have seen this coming from a mile away. The scene that followed was exactly like one of those in the dramas. "But he's my source of income!" What the hell?! That doesn't matter. He physically hurt you! Besides, you have a job and make enough money to support yourself anyway. "Oh, you say it doesn't matter. Well I've wasted the last seven years of my life with him and you just want me to...uh...well...it does matter, it just does!" Yeah, right. Couldn't even finish that sentence when you realized what you were saying. It's straight out of a movie, and that's what makes it so sad. This happens to women everyday, and most still say that their husbands love them. News flash- they don't! They are infatuated with you. Accustomed to you. What they love is drugs and alcohol.

Since she couldn't afford the house on her own, and since we have extra space, and since she was actually leaving him this time, we told her that she could stay with us. So she's spent most of this week moving in and putting a lot of her things in storage. On Tuesday I helped her put the last of her things in storage, and dump the rest of her stuff off in our garage so she could return the U-Haul and not have to pay for an extra day. On Wednesday we found out that someone had bailed Chuck out of jail, and this is after the bail bond lady kept calling Christy trying to get her to bail him out. Boy, seems like everyone's greedy nowadays. Apparently Christy talked to him, and of course he apologized and said that he was going to get help and turn his life around... kind of feels like there should be a commercial break coming up, doesn't it? She told him that she didn't believe anything that came out of his mouth anymore (smart woman, but I doubt it will last), and that he would have to show her though actions. Among other promises he made, he promised that he would never call or come by our house. Phew, I'm relieved. I mean, if he promised and everything, then there's no way he'll do it. I'll just leave my doors unlocked and cancel that pesky Caller ID service.

On Thursday, all three of us went out to a bar to hear one of Christy's friends sing karaoke. Treeses wasn't feeling good, and I really don't like going to bars, but we were her friends so we went with her anyway. I played Game Boy Advance SP the whole time (a little Metroid Fusion, but mostly Ghouls and Ghosts). Treeses and Christy watched the karaoke singers most the time, but around midnight Christy just took off somewhere. A little later on, Treeses went to find her, and had to drag her back to the car. She was drunk, and was outside flirting with a bunch of guys. Oh yeah, and her cell phone was accidentally left on for something like 10 or 20 minutes, and Chuck heard a bunch of it. It wasn't long after we arrived home that we got a call from Chuck. Wow, he didn't even make it 48 hours without breaking his promises. And apparently he also drove by the house earlier. Yep, you go boy! That's the way to show her you changed! Why don't you go grab a beer celebrate... moron.

Of course, maybe he's not a complete moron. I mean, Christy did drive over to her house (yes, after she had been drinking) to "get some clothes", even though, or more likely because, Chuck was there. I had no idea it took several hours to pick up some clothes. And while she was there, she called the house, and actually had Chuck talk to Treeses. Well, he apologized for everything he's done, so I guess that makes it all better then. I mean, this is an alcoholic, drug addict we're talking about. They don't throw out apologies to just anyone. They only do it when they mean it... like when he sold her car and kept the money to buy more drugs... oh wait, I don't think he apologized that time....

I guess you could say that Thursday really wasn't a great night, so on Friday afternoon I picked Treeses up from work and took her out to lunch. It was nothing fancy, just Denny's, but you can never go wrong there. We both had the spicy chicken sandwich, as we both love that sauce that they use. We also tried a side order of fries covered in melted cheese and topped with bacon pieces, but it wasn't very good. It was like five bucks, so we were expecting something more like nachos with fries instead of chips, but it was just a bunch of standard fries with a little bit of once-melted-but-now-dried cheese and a sprinkle of bacon chips. It was pretty pathetic. Next time we'll stick with the cheese sticks.

Does anyone remember how hard Ghouls and Ghosts was? My god, I was stuck on the first level for over an hour. I lost count of how many times I died before I got to the next stage. And to think that I actually beat this game once, with only like four continues and no saving. Of course, those were the days when games had to be challenging to keep them interesting, and we all had oodles of free time to conquer them. Lately I just started replaying Metroid Prime in an attempt to finish the game with a completion rate of 90% or higher. Or when Treeses is playing video games on the TV, such as Devil May Cry, I'll head on over to the computer and play some of the old NES games on emulation. I tried playing this old game I have called Simon the Sorcerer, which was really fun, but I can't get it to work correctly with my computer. There is no sound, and it just randomly crashes and shuts down. I went through Adventure Soft's support pages, but nothing there got it working. I then e-mailed them on March 31, but haven't had a response yet, so my guess is that they're not going to respond.

Oh, and while I'm on the subject of pathetic customer service, I just received a postcard in the mail on Thursday that said our TiVo rebate was denied because I didn't include the serial number. Of course, that is a complete fabrication, as I included the serial numbers from both the first TiVo they sent which was broke, and then from the replacement TiVo they sent. I cut the sticker off the box, I printed out the e-mails, and I wrote them a note explaining about the two TiVos. I included everything they asked for, and then some. So when I called Friday morning, they told me to cut out the picture of the little TiVo icon on the box that the TiVo came in, write the serial number on the back of it, and mail it in. WARNING! WARNING! MORONS DETECTED. PROCEED WITH EXTREME CAUTION! Whatever. I'm tired of dealing with morons. Oh, and the place handling the TiVo rebates doesn't even tell their employees what a TiVo is. The lady on the phone didn't know that the TiVo serial number is the same as the TiVo service number. She even asked if TiVo took batteries, because a lot of times serial numbers can be found on the battery covers. Urg. My brain hurts, so I think I'm gonna stop writing now. So until the next update, just...uh...er...just do whatever you normally do.

Added the anime profile of Chobits. Added the character profiles of Ishizu Ishtar (from Yu-Gi-Oh!), and Keitaro Urashima, Mitsune Konno, Shinobu Maehara, and Kaolla Su (all from Love Hina).

One thing I forgot to mention last week is that two Sundays ago Latrice and I went for a hike out by my old office. We followed a path part of the way, then crossed a big pipe to get on the other side of a trench. From there we followed the sound of running water until we came to a river. It was crystal clear, and we would have went it except that it was freezing cold. Anyway, I took a few pictures while we were there, so you can check 'em out on the Photos From a Hike page.

Nothing much really happened this week. We saw a few movies. There was Red Dragon, Ghost Ship, Lilo & Stitch, and Bad Company. None of them were all that special. Ghost Ship had some really cool scenes, but was most of it was just bland and boring. Lilo & Stitch has a few laughs, especially when Stitch build the little city and then destroyed it. There's really not much else to say. Let's see, we've been watch some TV too. We always look forward to 24, and the new comedy Wanda at Large isn't bad. Wanda's very funny, but she's the only one. They need more of her doing her news reports. Oh, Penn & Teller: Bullshit! is a great new series on Showtime. Hm, what else... well we still watch Alias, which is much better now that she's not a double agent. We're also watching Survivor again, but we don't really look forward to it. We can't wait for The Amazing Race to come back on.