I would give 2007 a 5, better than 2005 and 2006, but still hard and painful. On the positive side, I got my body back from arthritis, thanks to sulfasalazine. On the negative side, Mrs. Ha is still riding her pharmaceutical rollercoaster, we're still in the for worse part (though hopefully heading to for better), and we're still in deep debt.

It's been a very social week, I'm ready to hibernate for a while. Saturday Mrs. Ha's family had their Christmas party. The girls were with my parents visiting their folks in Pennsylvania, so Mrs. Ha and I went alone. We stopped at the nursing home first to see Mrs. Ha's mom, she's better physically but seemed to have lost a little more mentally, I'm not sure she knew who I was.

Then we drove down the Boulevard to Mrs. Ha's sister's. It was a different toned party, there were only two kids there. It was mellow, lots of good food, nothing spectacular in the way of beer, so I only had one. I spent a lot of time in the rec room watching the first half of the Patriots-Giants game, and 2 minutes of the Alamo bowl (enough to see Penn State take the lead at least), for a while it was just guys, guys and football, what more could you ask for.

Later Mrs. Ha's brother was talking about how their mom still has it. One demented man was asking where his wife was, their mother said she just saw her, a few minutes ago. I didn't really say anything, it was for the best.

There is probably a good anti-death penalty movie out there, but
The Life of David Gale is not it. It's not even my favorite Kate Winslett movie where she doesn't get naked, that would be Eternal Sunshine. Anyhow, the movie is about a professor who's a committed opponent of the death penalty who ends up on death row for raping and killing another professor who is also a committed opponent of the death penalty (yeah, it's a bit pretentious and fully in irony zone Red). While the case promised shocking twists, I had it figured out before the halfway point. I guess the point is that the death penalty is not foolproof, and a group of committed intelligent people can conspire against it.

In other media reviews, I finished A Blood-Dimmed Tide, another book on the Battle of the Bulge, nice light seasonal reading. The more I read of the Bulge, the more I think most SS veterans should have died in prison, it was common for them to kill civilians and prisoners. Again, Peiper should have swung, though he did pay for his crime eventually. It's a good book, focusing on lots of individual stories, including many from American prisoner's.

We got a last minute invite to go to Porsche_girls for New Years Eve, they were having a few neighbors over and invited us. I wasn't sure if we were going to stay until Midnight, but we did, the girls were up to it. They've turned their basement into a nice rec room, with a big flat TV, and a Wii. The Wii was nice, with DDR being the big hit of the night ( I even tried it out a few times), but more on that later. It ended being a very nice time, I talked with adults, including a mom I know from swimming who has a son also trying to get into SOTA. I like the kid, and eleven year old will even talk to him (she usually thinks boys are icky). I'm hoping he gets in, too.

It was probably one of my better NYE's, it was nice to get out and talk to other adults. We even did the reminiscence about old times, since most of the people were in Rochester in the 80's, though I was the youngest and many of the bars mentioned had been closed by the times I became legal.

New Year's Day was pretty lazy, we were all tired, I was even a bit hungover (I didn't get drunk, but I did sip a little wine over 5 hours). The girls and I did get in most of a game of Viktory II, my policy of rapid expansion then slow consolidation left me in a great position to win, if we had kept playing.

Later, eleven year old and I started work on her project box for the SOTA audition. She's doing nearly all of the work, I helped her clamp down the miter box, and sawed a few strokes. She understands measure twice and cut once, now.

So, the family is taken with DDR, and is fun, and a good way to get exercise in our frozen clime. While the Wii is nice, and I can see why it's such a big hit, there's no room in our budget for it, I'm hoping for something under $100. What's the best DDR combo I can get for that?