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Attention, people who want to sound sophisticated:

It’s almost always grammatically incorrect to use “and myself” in a phrase.  For example,

I think people are so afraid to say “and me” that they look for anything else.  Even worse than the above is the inevitable, “… from Steve and I”.  Aieee!

The classic PC game Doom was released 20 years ago today.  Ahh, I remember many long hours in the campus computer labs blowing the smithereens out of low-resolution monsters, and using the rocket launcher in ambushes against my friends.

So many things about that game were amazing: the 3D textured walls, the fact that you could play against other people over the network, the ability to create your own maps (WAD file, anyone?),… truly, it was a landmark in the world of computer gaming.  Kids these days take all of that stuff for granted because pretty much every game since then has incorporated those things.

I remember that Doom became so widespread that the campus IT team would actively search student accounts (on the Novell Netware system, no less!) and delete the doom.exe file.  Of course, being the clever guys we were, we’d simply rename the file to something innocuous like unicorns.exe.

Good times.  I should install it on my system and fire it up, just for old times’ sake.  Happy birthday, old friend.

Since both Laralee and I are terrible at coming up with gift ideas, it was great when she thought of something pretty cool for her mom.  As a family, we all sat around reading classic Christmas stories while Alex recorded them on his Mac.  He then did a little audio cleanup, converted them to MP3 files, and we’ll burn them to a CD for mom.  She can then listen to her grandchildren telling stories– many of which are from a collection of Christmas tales that she gave us many years ago.

I, of course, picked the most classic Christmas story of all:

Today we worked on mailing our annual Christmas cards… all 221 of them!

Last year at the annual white elephant Christmas party we attend every year, someone brought an amazing gift: a Blankeez family-size snuggie. It was absolutely hilarious.

As it turned out, it was just an empty box because the whole thing is a gag.  This year, as I consider what to bring to the party, I’m wondering if a similar gag gift would be appropriate.  I found the Extreme Chores video game pack, as well as Connect-a-Cord:

But I feel like the best one is going to be the iArm:

Apple fans will especially appreciate it.  Hah!

I just had one of those customer service experiences with ThinkGeek that put a smile on my face and made me want to share how awesome they are. I’d purchased a t-shirt for a Christmas gift, and the one they sent to me isn’t what I ordered. I jumped on their online chat tool and had the following conversation:

Thanks, Janna and ThinkGeek. That totally rocks.

I’m listening to an 80’s rock Shoutcast stream today while I work, and Loverboy’s “Hot Girls in Love” just came on.  For some reason, as kids we made fun of it by calling it “Hot Grits in Love”.  On a whim I checked the internet to see if “hot grits” has some kind of deep meaning.  According to the Urban Dictionary:

Since Natalie Portman probably wasn’t even born back in the days my friends and I used that term, I guess we were way ahead of the hipster curve.

Bonus points if you know what a Beowulf cluster is. Yes, I built one many years ago.

At 11:00 today it was sunny and 55 degrees outside.  Gorgeous, especially for December.

I had lunch with a friend, then a meeting with a client.  At 1:00 it was overcast, windy, and the temperature had dropped 20 degrees.  Tonight they’re expecting wind chills well below zero, six inches of snow, and for the next few days the high is in the teens or less.

Wow, Colorado weather.

I found this little book in a pile of old stuff from my desk.

I’m pretty sure it’s from Mom, many Christmases ago. And, funny thing, it’s still apropos.

I found this nice letter from Kyra, circa age 4 or so.