Will Slusher.net

…I lied…  Quick Superbowl movie trailer reactions:

• Year One – meh…
• Land of the Lost – Ah, so that’s what it feels like to have your childhood anally violated.
• Up – I’m still not sure about this one… but it’s Pixar, it has to be good… right?
• Monsters vs Aliens – Soooooooo excited!
• Transformers 2 – Looks like another crazy action CG-fest… I’m down…
• Race to Witch Mountain – Storm trooper cameo was nice…  could be fun… Methinks I need to see the original Witch Mountain movie (movies?)…
• Star Trek – I’m really excited for this one…  I don’t care what the haters say..
• Fast and the Furious – I’m oddly excited about this one… I think because the original cast is back so it lets us pretend that other sequels never existed… not that I actually ever saw them…
• Angels and Demons – Oddly excited about this one too…  Probably because I’m a sucker for most any sort of archeological-historical-conspiracy theory-mystery-adventure movie…

Ok… I think that’s it…

Just some random stuff bouncin’ around the old noggin’…

• So, I started doing a little work on my basement this weekend…  Adding a few outlets (well, 10… for now), moving the pseudo-door to the laundry room so that it’s actually in front of the washer dryer, etc…  So far things are going pretty well, but while picking up some things at Lowes I noticed something…  does is bother anyone else that that the little plastic outlet covers cost MORE than the actual outlets???  I picked up a 10-pack of each and the outlet covers were almost $1 more…  Somehow that just seems wrong to me…
• For dinner to night I tried one of Domino’s oven baked sandwiches…  I must say it was fairly disappointing…  weird bread, so-so meat, could have used some lettuce…  ‘course, perhaps I’ve been spoiled by Little Johns for so many years…
• Also, I must say I was a little disappointed with the 3-D half time commercials.  Not the commercials themselves (well, not the Monsters vs Aliens one at least, I’m definitely looking forward to that one… but the Sobe lizards always freak me out and I lost interest in Chuck quite some time ago…  and ARGH!  I’m sorry Chuck, but if you were in 1-D you’d be a point…  sorry, I’m getting off topic… where was I… oh, yeah), just the general state of 3-D technology…  I guess there’s only so much you can do without special equipment… Or maybe it’s just me, those glasses never work quite right for me…
• Wait… G = Gatorade???  Really!?!
• Richard Dean Anderson cameo in the Macgruber Pepsi commercial FTW!
• Sorry, this seems to have degraded into a Superbowl commercial live blog…  ah well… :)

I suppose that’s enough for now…  Oh, wait, I forgot, I never actually posted any follow up to my last post about halloween costumes…  Check this out:  Ash Costume

So yeah, I know, I’m way behind on a lot of blogging…  I’m way overdue for a virtual tour of my new house and the joys and tribulations of home ownership…  I’ve also got posts brewing about some happy and exciting adventures in technical theater down at Live Arts, about the joys of being a new iPhone owner, and maybe a few other things…

…but today I have something else on my mind…

Ya see, a week or so ago, something occurred to me…  After being visited on several consecutive evening by school children, hocking their wares to raise money for their schools, I came to a realization….

…I might actually have trick-or-treaters this year!  And that means, I have an excuse to actually dress up for Halloween this year…

So, since that moment of realization, I’ve been considering different options for costumes, and I’ve arrived at two clear and obvious favorites:

1. Dr. Horrible -  For those of you not yet familiar with Joss Whedon’s three webisode musical epic about a would-be supervillan and his aspirations for love and/or world domination, get thee to iTunes and get it now… It’s worth every penny of the $4.99 they seem to be charging now…

   Pros: Love the character, fairly easy to assemble (gloves, boots, welding goggles, “Howie” style lab coat), doubles as a generic mad scientist for the kiddies.

   Cons: So far the only suitable lab coat I’ve found is from a company actually selling Dr. Horrible replicas, at it’s a bit pricey…




2. Ash (from Evil Dead/Army of Darkness) – If you’re not familiar with Bruce Campbell’s quintessential roll as the gun toting, one-liner quiping, chain-saw handed, demon slaying bad-ass of the Evil Dead trilogy… well, I’m just not sure I can speak to you any more…

   Pros: Totally groovy.  And, with the exception of the chainsaw hand (which is ESSENTIAL), it wouldn’t be to hard to assemble either…  I’d just need to ruin some brown cords and a denim shirt…

   Cons: It would require construction of my own prop chainsaw.  And, being me, I wouldn’t be satisfied unless it looked and sounded pretty darn real…

So… those are the options I’m considering…  Thoughts?  ideas?  comments?  concerns?  badgers?

…No, there is too much.  Let me sum up…

I suppose it’s time for another one of those posts…  The ok-it’s-been-far-too-long-since-I’ve-posted-so-I’d-better-catch-up-on-everything-in-one-big-blog posts…

So, I suppose I should hit the highlights…  Let’s see…

• I ran another marathon!  I did the C’ville marathon again, and did pretty dang well I have to say.  3:54:53…  There are a few pictures in the new photo album I’m testing out…
• Let’s see…  I also started volunteering down at Live Arts a month or two ago…  That’s turned out to be quite a bit of fun… I just a little bit sad I didn’t start helping out down there, oh, I don’t know, 6-7 years ago…  Ah well… :)
• And, I suppose the biggest news is that I’m working on buying a house!  I’ve got an offer in on a great place (more on that later), and if all goes according to plan I’m set to close on the 30th…  I have to admit, I’m REALLY excited about the new place… not so much about the mortgage, but, ya know, what can ya do… :)

Well, I suppose that hits the high points of the last couple months…  Oh, I’m also going to try out Twitter a bit… we’ll see if shorter little mini-posts will mean quicker updates…  you can follow me over there –>, or at http://twitter.com/willslusher/…

…we’ll see how that goes…

Woo-hoo! methinks I can finally put a great big “DONE!” stamp on my holiday shopping…

…’course, I’m still waiting on two things to be delivered, but according to the tracking info, they should be here this week…

Also exciting, I received a package today containing something I had completely forgotten that I had ordered (well, until last week when I got the tracking info and was, like, “what the hell is this?!?”)… Long story short, over the summer I came across a deal online I just couldn’t resist…. all 10 Star Trek movie, from the original motion picture through Nemesis, for $38! Pretty sweet… My only complaint is that each movie is a 2 DVD set in a double-wide DVD case, even though both discs are on one side and the remainder of the case is just empty space… So my DVD rack is now nearly full…

Ah well, could be worse… :)

Sometimes I even impress myself…

Last week I was making some cookies to serve at my annual viewing of The Star Wars Holiday Special.  I had decided to make my famous double-dark chocolate cookies and some yummy peanut butter cookies…

…and then I started thinking…  Chocolate is good…  Peanut butter is good…  but chocolate + peanut butter = awesome!

And thus my all new, patented, peanut butter stuffed chocolate cookies were born!

…and there was much rejoicing…

… with one headlight…

Note to self: never, ever, trust the stupid glorified calculator at Wal-Mart that is supposed to tell you what model headlight is appropriate for your car…

So, a week or so ago I discovered that one of my headlights was out…  If it tapped on it a bit it would come back on, but after checking all the connections the issue still remained so I thought it best to go ahead an replace them…

Soooooo, I went by Wal-Mart, punched the make/model/year info of my car in and purchased the model 9007 headlamps and headed home to pop them in…

Well, long story short, about 2 hours, a lot of cursing, and a little creative Dremel work later, I had said headlamps installed… only to discover that they did not function quite as desired…  Basically, they seemed to be on high regularly (even the high beam indicator stayed on all the time), and on high they go REALLY dim…

A bit more cursing and some Googling later I discovered my model Xterra actually takes a 9004 lamp, not a 9007…  So back to Wal-Mart I went today to pick up the RIGHT lamps…  And so, long story short, about 2 minutes later, I had the new lamps installed and everything working normally again…

Sheesh…. :)

Just a quick post to say that I have some pics from the Richmond Marathon up in the photo album… it’s just the “official” ones for now, but hopefully I’ll have some from uncle Tom, and some from mom to add soon…

Anywho, without further ado, you can find the pics here: 2007 – Richmond Marathon

So, I typically don’t like to be one of those bloggers who simply a link to something interesting he saw elsewhere on the internets, but I happened upon this earlier this morning and, well, it hit too close to home in a few ways, so I had to share…

…So, I present to you, The Nerd Handbook…

…I’m opting for the former today…

Today I successfully ran in the 30th Annual Richmond Marathon… and I have to say, I was pretty pleased with the results…

I have to say, the weather today wasn’t the most cooperative… It was a little chilly… which would have been ok if it wasn’t also damp and windy… Luckily I opted for two shirts and some spandex under my running shorts this morning, so it could have been worse, but I was still kinda chilled at the end… At least it didn’t rain… ;)

Anywho, I ended up finishing the race just under 4 hours (3 hours, 57 minutes, 58 seconds, if you go by my timing chip), which I’m really frickin’ excited about…

I did want to say a big thanks to my uncle Tom and Aunt Phyllis, and my Uncle Jack and Aunt Helen from Richmond, as well as my Aunt Hazel from Floyd who came out for dinner last night and to wish me well, and especially to Uncle Tom who drove everyone around today to cheer me on… And, of course, to my Mom and Dad for coming up and supporting me…

Also, thanks to everyone who called, e-mailed, or texted me to wish me well… I really appreciate it… :)

And now, dinner… :)