That dream started to fade away when my myopia became stronger, it's no fun to go underwater when you can't see beyond the length of your arm. I knew you could get dive masks with prescription lenses, but everything I read about them indicated they were very pricey. Way too much to spend on a whim.

Thanks to modern technology, you can buy prescription swim goggles now. I imagine they must mold a bunch of polycarbonate lenses at differing strengths, with no custom strengths they're very cheap. I bought these Tyr goggles from Amazon, only in -8.0 (my prescription is around -10 and -11), and I'm amazed, for under $20 I can now see while swimming. I tried them out in the Y pool, it's like 70% of the world is open to me again.

Aside from swimming with my new goggles, Tuesday was a frustrating day. In the morning I stopped at a big box hardware store on the way to work to get corner frames for eleven year old's audition project and a gift for my dad. Since I was there right after they opened, I had to take a roundabout route to get to the tools and avoid the morning team building cheerleading meeting the workers where having (I didn't feel like walking through the middle of it). Wouldn't you know, I got accosted by an old tenant. He was pleasant enough, talking about the houses he owns, but by the time I placed him, I couldn't think of a snappy comeback, like, "being a landlord is rough when your tenants trash the place with three dogs and stop paying rent" or "dang, I had hoped you died in a dwi".

The day got more frustrating, I went into the Dentists for a crown fitting, and the crown didn't fit. Nothing like wasting an hour in the dentists chair.

I should just accept there is no justice in this world. You're probably heard the story of the small isolated settlement in early America where the kids get really sick, and a young spunky girl is told the village isn't what it seems, and she has to leave it to find medicine? I'm not talking about the 2004 film The Village, but rather the 1996 young adult book Running out of Time, with nearly the same plot. If there was justice Margaret Haddix would have gotten millions from M Night. I suggested to eleven year old that she would like it, she likes Scott Westerfield's books.

Speaking of eleven year old, she's on the bubble for getting a academic scholarship to the small Catholic school. So close, yet no money. We're praying things will change.

I guess I'm a softie, but I think endangering a fix year old is a cheap way to build suspense in a horror film. I don't mind promiscuous teens getting it in slasher films (maybe because I'd have been one of the dorky virtuous ones that survived for the sequel), but the parts of Dark Water where the little kid was being menaced were darn disturbing. It's yet another remake of a Japanese horror film with lots of mood, lots of dripping disgusting water, not much gore, and lots of sadness. I did learn about Roosevelt Island, a small island off Manhattan where most of the action takes place.

The kids took High School Musical out the library. My high school was not very much like that.

Reno 911, the sitcom, is one of our guilty pleasures, it's stupid, not politically correct, with lots of physical comedy. It's good in small doses, translated to the screen it gets tiresome. I suppose it's like the eccentric person you see on the street, amusing for a little while, but no one you want to spend a night with.

In other movie news, we watched about half of Dancer in the Dark,  with Bjork as a slowly going blind factory worker, with some surrealistic dance numbers thrown in. It was odd, and long, and I don't think we're going to finish it.

In other unfinished media news, I had to return an unfinished book to the library (it was new, I couldn't renew), To Rule the Waves, how the British Navy shaped the modern world. I got up to the American War of Independence, to read that Americans were criminal smugglers who should have been glad to remain Englishman. I found a few other sentences that revealed other instances of inadequate proofreading. It was interesting, I found out that recoiling cannon didn't happen until long after the Spanish Armada, back then you climbed over the side of the ship to swab and reload a cannon. It's on my to take out again list. I may check out his other book too, something about Scots being cheap and saving everything.

I did finish yet another book on the Hurtgen Forest, Follow Me and Die. The more I read, the more of a cluster it sounds like. Right up there with Iraq. The book did have lots of nice maps, with which I hope to make a Panzer Grenadier scenario.

We also finished another Magic Tree House book, High Tide in Hawaii, in which Jack gets so crazy, he Hula dances. Wow!

In stereotypical scandalous family news, one kinfolk is having marital troubles (growing up in a dysfunctional house with a closeted mom and an alcoholic dad surely helped), the other is working hard on living up to the stereotype of women raised by single moms. Mrs. Ha is bothered by the last item, she does like to borrow other people's trouble.

This weekend looks busy, and maybe fun. Mrs. Ha's sister is taking the girls overnight to take them to the Hannah Montana movie, our former neighbors invited us to a pre-Superbowl party on Saturday night. We're planning on lots of driving this weekend.

I missed Robbie Burns day by one day, though no one expressed any interest in haggis (good thing, I couldn't find any). I did have some Scotch in his honor (cheap Dewar's), I no longer have much of a taste for it. In better alcohol news, I got a batch of honey lager going, it should be kegged and drinkable in time for my 42nd birthday.