Some Reminders

First of all, I forgot to mention something that was brought up last night at the FSDNUG: the upcoming (as in, this Saturday) Tulsa School of Dev. It looks interesting, but I'm not sure that it seems worth the ~2 hour one way trip without some company. Plus someone I know, even if they aren't walking, is technically graduating that day, so I may be tied up anyway.

Secondly, don't forget: this Sunday is Mother's Day. I'm not a big proponent of gifts (this is mainly because then you're buying into the "just another excuse to get people to buy expensive gifts" aspect of the day), but you should show appreciation: call, visit, send a card - something to show her that you care.

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Can you really?

Can you love someone and hate them at the same time? Can they inspire you and digust you simultaneously? Can you see their every perfection and flaw? Can you trust them completely with your life, but know they can turn on you at any second? Can you feel like you know them inside out, and still know that they're a stranger to you?

That's something my sister posted as a note on Facebook. I'm going to try to respond here.

1. Yes, although I think it's more appropriate to say that you can love someone but hate what they do or hate someone and love what they do.
2. I think it's possible, but rare.
3. That's hard to say, and I think your next questions point to the answer being "no." They both imply that there's something you know that you don't know about the person in question, which would mean that you don't see every perfection and flaw.
4. Again, it's possible, but I think that it's either some knowledge you've kept hidden from yourself or, possibly, an issue of trust.
5. Yeah. I think that's happened to me before. It's an issue in that it's incredibly hard to really know someone, but after a certain point we all assume we know how someone will react, what their opinion will be. We can almost never be certain though.

And now for a quote from my own catalog that may be somewhat relevant:

"I now believe that every weakness is a strength misapplied, and every strength is a weakness which has found its proper use."
-- Stephen R Donaldson

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53 and counting...

So, my dad turned 53 yesterday and I decided that, despite them having come up to surprise me earlier, that I'd go down to visit and have our semi-standard family meal. My immediate family's birthdays are nice and neatly packed together: mine and my dad's are 9 days apart in April, my mom's and my sister's are the same day in November.

The trip began Friday afternoon after a celebratory luncheon (for something that I'm still not sure we're officially supposed to talk about) with some of my co-workers. 3 hour drive to my parent's house with a quick stop by my old college town along the way. I started out listening to Fear the Boot #97, then switched to listening to some music - mostly Switchfoot, I think.

That evening we sat around, enjoying the Starz preview weekend that DirecTV was having. Too bad that, like all movie channels, they pretty much repeat the same stuff over and over. Of course, once 2100 CDT rolled around we watched Galactica. TV and Books are really the only consistent entertainment at my parents, since they don't have access to high-speed internet, short of satellite for which I don't think they'd pay.

On Saturday, Dad and myself lounged around for most of the morning. Mom and my sister went to a baby shower, and the plan was for us to meet them and The Olive Garden around lunch. Such was the plan and such occurred, complete with Dad getting embarrassed by the Garden's lunch crew singing their little birthday song. Sung with cake, but no candle - apparently they'd run out. Then, after a brief stop by K-Mart, the three of us who were going home went there and crashed. (My sister was going to the Senior Art Show at our Alma Mater about and hour and a half away.) Later that evening, dad popped in the DVD I'd brought: The New Frontier, the animated adaptation of Darwyn Cooke's look at the period between the Silver and Golden Age of comics within the DC Universe.

Earlier today, after getting up and watching CBS Sunday Morning, I went grocery shopping with mom - something I hadn't done in a long time. So much stuff ended up in the cart, less than when I lived with them, understandably, but still quite a bit. It's kind of amazing though, when you consider that they've mostly cut out the truly snacky foods. At the time we left, until about 1530 (I was gone by then), the power was out, which made for some pretty quiet periods. After some lunch, cooked on their gas grill, I left, saying goodbye until at least Memorial Day weekend.

So anyways, that was my weekend. How about yours? I've got approximately 1 week to finish Persona 3 before FES comes out, so that's where I'll probably be spending a good deal of free time this week.

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On Surprises...

If you look at my profile, you'll see my 25th birthday is coming up. Hooray for reduced insurance prices!

Anyways, my parents came up this weekend. The same weekend that one of my friends was arranging a get-together to play some Super Smash Bros. Brawl (SSBB) and grill some burgers. Unbeknownst to me, this was all actually the cover for a surprise birthday party, including NES-controller-shaped cake, courtesy of my sister (I'll have to get some pics from someone who had a camera). Thanks for the party everybody! Although, we should definitely get together sometime just for Brawl.

In other news, it appears that GameStop is going to attempt to solve my PS3 SNAFU by shipping me what I ordered. Hopefully they get it right this time, otherwise I'm gonna tell'em to just accept the return and buy a 60Gb PS3 off of the Amazon Marketplace.

In the meantime, I think I'm going to attend tonight's second (my first, should I go), meeting of the Fort Smith .NET User Group (FSDNUG). I don't think I'll ever use Silverlight at my current job, but it should interesting to see what Microsoft plans for their Flash-like framework.

Before that though, I'm going to try and get through the month of November in Persona 3 (only 23 days before the FES expansion comes out).

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