The Cranium Cabinet

I was at West Town today doing some Christmas shopping. When lunch time came around, Hannah and I decided on this Greek place in the food court. It was actually really good, except for one thing:

They make their Tzatziki sauce with sour cream instead of yogurt. Tzatziki fail.

Hannah and I went to the Haunted Forest in Sevierville last night. Thankfully, we got in for free because she knew someone who worked there. If you pay $9 to get into this thing, you are wasting your money.

You have a guide that leads you around a made up paintball course and there is nothing scary about it. Watch out for the guy in the Michael Myers mask!!! When I said “Hey look, it’s the priceline.com guy! He can slash prices!” he didn’t get it.

Oh well, don’t go there unless you wanna drive an hour to waste money.

So I got this house a while back and it was pretty dull. All the rooms are pretty much the same color and it has dark wood trim. I decided that I was going to redo the whole house, just very slowly. I started with the master bedroom. Here’s what it looked like before I moved in:

As one can see, not much is going on. I decided to spruce it up a little:

I’ve painted a two-tone scheme with new baseboard, chair rail, and eventually crown moulding (I’m painting now). I’ve also replaced all the electrical outlets to more modern pieces and replaced the doors as well.

After looking at my bike in disgust for the past 2 months every time I rode it, I decided it was time to wash it. First things first, gotta get the hose…

Turns out, I had a friend waiting for me:

Yes PETA, I killed her, I’m sorry.

Anyway, I continued to wash the SV and here she is in all her glory:

She’s for sale if you would like to purchase her. There any many, many goodies that go with her too… Email me if you are interested.

Tags: Black Widow, Motorcycle, SV650S

Not familiar? I wish I weren’t either.

Tonight I finally got my WDS working (I’ll get a write-up together tomorrow). After hooking up my Dish DVR and my 360 to my wireless bridge, I was cruisin’ on the internet in style. I turn my 360 on and look through my friend requests, approve them, and then am informed that I am in need of an update. Cool, no biggie. I download/install the update and it reboots my console.

This is the part where things begin to go downhill…

The first problem is that it hung on the initial 360 splash screen. Basically, I just had a green screen. I turn the system off and back on and I get the 3 red lights. This is no good. I do some basic troubleshooting and disconnect all peripherals that are not needed (e.g. antique HD-DVD player). I turn the 360 back on and… SUCCESS! Or so I thought… not 1 minute later the 360 freezes again.

At this point I’m digging through my boxes trying to find my receipt. I couldn’t find it, so I log on to xbox.com and register my console. This is the best part… are you ready? I register and I see this:

To truly appreciate that, take note of today’s date. 9/23/2008. HA HA!

I call up Microsoft after remembering that they had extended their warranties out 3 years. We finally get everything squared away and I have to send them my 360. I guess it will be another 3 weeks before I get to play…

This video may be NWS due to language…

This man is very concerned about his plant, apparently it was stolen. He feels the best way to get it back is violence, of course.

Cheap Shot - Watch more free videos

This past weekend I went to Indianapolis with my dad to watch MotoGP. Remnants Ike really rained down on us, hard. I think I was wet for at least 8 hours on Sunday, which, in-turn, made me sick. Thanks Ike! Also, wind gusts of 60mph didn’t help. In fact, they had to Red Flag the race. Rossi won by default, so that’s good.

I should have video up soon.

For those of you who love hot wings and beer, especially on Tuesdays, Wild Wing Cafe is the place to be. Yesterday was supposed to be golf and hotwings night, but because of the storms, it was just hotwings night. Wild Wing Cafe has some good deals on Tuesday (which they call Two-fer-Tuesday, or something like that). Basically you buy 8 wings, you get 8 free, so 16 wings for like 7 bux. All draught beer is 2.50/pint, even that fancy Newcastle and Fat Tire.

I suggest the Fat Tire.

In case you were wondering, I promptly went to the Rush after this outing to burn off all the excess calories.

So I take my dog out to the park with Hannah and she gets a scent of something. I let her track it down into the bushes and she comes back out in a couple seconds, no big deal.

We get home and I take Holly (the dog) outside to use the restroom. That is where she sees a rabbit and chases it to the fence. She then proceeds to try to fit herself through the slats in the fence to chase the rabbit. Realizing that she is just being stupid, I call her inside.

After about 10 minutes, her face starts breaking out in hives. I immediately thought “Well, she has some kind of poison ivy” so I proceeded to bathe her to try to wash any of the remaining oils off of her coat. Apparently, that wasn’t the issue. Her face continued to swell and her eyes started to swell shut. That is when I used my friend, the internet, to research a solution.

I soon learned that the recommended dosage of diphenhydramine for a dog is 1mg/lb. Being that my dog weighs approximately 55lbs, I went to the nearest gas station and got on of those two-packs of Benadryl. After administering the dosage, she slowly became drowsy and finally went to sleep.

The next morning, I took my dog to Lovell Animal Hospital for two reasons: One being that her face was swollen due to some type of allergic reaction and the other being that she hadn’t been eating for the past couple of days. Concerning the allergic reaction, they weren’t sure what caused it, but they gave her an injection of steroids and told me to give her 50mg of Benadryl, 3 times a day. Secondly, they said they weren’t concerned about the not eating thing and to check back Monday if she still wasn’t eating. However, they did recommend Iams dog food instead of Pedigree.

Being the great and loving owner that I am, I went to the local Wal-Mart and picked up a 100-pill bottle of diphenhydramine, an 5-lb bag of Iams dog food ($15, can you believe that?), and a little doggy-bed for her. She seems to enjoy both her 8new food and her new bed and she is off the Benadryl as of today. Hopefully her face will heal up and she will gain her appetite again.

Although she did barf on my floor last night…

Yes, I love owning my own place and doing things on my own schedule. I don’t mind paying bills, doing laundry, feeding the dog, or cleaning the house. I don’t even mind mowing the lawn. One of the other joys of home-ownership is the camaraderie of the surrounding neighbors. 

When I moved in, I immediately knew that the neighbor behind me was going to be particularly peculiar. I made this assumption because of the “NO TRESPASSING” sign he had zip-tied to his fence, facing my property. First off, who does this? This guy isn’t running a junkyard, doesn’t have a big stash of catalytic converters or copper wire that anyone would want to steal.  The most valuable thing he has in his backyard are some tomatoes. Honestly, you really don’t need to put a sign up to prevent me from hanging out in your yard. Anyway, I give him the benefit of the doubt and consider that perhaps the folks’ kids who had lived there before me were cutting through his yard or something. 

The neighbors across the street from me are really nice. They have two boxers and they are dog people. I’ve talked to them a couple times and we talk mostly about our dogs, etc. The neighbor to the left of me seems to be a single guy, he is always outside without a shirt on, so I call him “Topless Steve” (his name really isn’t Steve, it has been changed to protect the innocent). Steve is also a nice dude, he has a hound dog which always barks and howls at me when I’m in the yard, but I don’t mind it. The neighbors to the right seem to be moving out, but I’ve met them as well, I even helped them move some of their stuff. 

So, on with the story… I was mowing my grass the other day and the neighbor behind me is tilling his garden or something. My dog, as most dogs, doesn’t like loud machinery, so naturally, she was barking at his tiller. As I’m making a pass by the back of my yard, I hear some unintelligible yelling, so I stop the mower to see my neighbor to the back of my house motioning for me to come over there. Having never met this neighbor, I expect some kind of introduction, but the conversation went like this instead:

Kyle: “Hey, how’s it goin?”
Old Dude: “If you don’t shut that dog up, I’m gonna call animal control.”
Kyle: “Um, so dogs aren’t supposed to bark?”
Old Grumpy Dude: “Well, your dog wakes me up every morning with its barking.”
Kyle: “Oh yeah? What time does she wake you up?”
Old Topless Jerk: “At the crack of dawn!”
Kyle: “That’s odd, because I don’t let her out until around 8:20.”
Old Walking Metamucil Ad: “Well, I’m just telling you what’s going to happen if you don’t shut that dog up! I’m going to call Animal Control!”
Kyle: “Go for it.”

So, being the kind guy that I am, I take my dog inside and proceed to call animal control myself. After speaking with them about what the laws are, I can safely say that they will not take my dog away. Basically the law states that in order for it to be an annoyance, the dog must bark for 10 minutes straight. Also, it must be barking at NOTHING. If it is actually barking at something, e.g. person, dog, cat, squirrel, lawn mower, etc., then it is fair game and cannot be counted in the 10 minutes.

Well, I guess mister neighbor will have to find something else to complain about.