Friday, finally, with two days off next week, it's been too long since I've had a break. Oh wait, we're taking a family outing to Canada, it may not be as much of a break as I was hoping. Maybe I can get a trip to Des Moines for a week.

I just got back from my immunologist/rheumatologist, I can stay on my cheap drugs and am good for another year. My feet will still stay XXXXX wide though.

The big consumer purchase this week was a new DVD player, the Phillips DVp 5140, the cheapest Divx capabable one I could find at Target. Only a small portion of my viewing is on divx, but I don't want to give it up, any representatives of Memorex or Sony may want to take note. I can understand Sony's reluctance to include that feature, there's a good reason my corp doesn't own any book or magazine publishers, but Memorex is known for blank media. So far it's a decent DVD player, though the remote is odd, it's trapezoidal shaped. Those wacky Europeans.

While digging behind the satellite receiver I took the opportunity to redo our upstairs wiring. Once I figured out (with the aid of their website) I was multiplexing the second remote's UHF signal down the same cable that was supplying the video upstairs (courtesy of a few cheap splitters), it made sense. Woo-hoo, DVR in the upstairs bedroom on our tiny TV.

The inaugaral movie was Hannah Montana. For us adults, it was The King, a damn heavy movie about an illegitimate son of a mega-church evangelist from Corpus Christi who wants the family he never had, and we're talking wants in a BIblical sense. Shades of Oedipus! Recommended for those who like a heavy drama, with bow hunting.

Next up was the pilot episode of Weeds, which I've heard a lot about. I'm not sure about it yet, I'd like to see a few more episodes.

In other media news, the last Magic Treehouse book was Lions at Lunchtime in which Jack and Annie head to Africa, and a tall Masai warrior eats Annie's honey.

Last weekend the school had a fund raiser at the park behind our house, a winter festival. Surprisingly, because of our lackluster winter, it ended up near ideal sledding weather. There was a few inches of ice and snow on the slopes, and the weather was in the mid 30's degrees Jesus, nearly shirtsleeve weather! A fun time was had by all.

From the Department of Very Bad Ideas, Irish_girl is not happy with her roommate/boyfriend, and would like her own place. She has poor boundaries and the longest she's been without a man in her life is about a week. For a second I thought about her and her kids moving in with us, that is a winner from the Department of Very Bad Ideas.

The weekly gaming day is tomorrow, I probably won't go. Eleven year old will be off camping with the Girl Scouts, six year old might get a play date, Mrs. Ha and I can spend time alone, doing married people things like balancing the checkbook. The yearly convention was last week in Niagara Falls, maybe next week I'll go.

Speaking of Niagara Falls, we're heading there Monday for a two day stay at the waterpark hotels. The kids have off school and four families (at least) from the school are going. We'll probably be taking AF_mom and her two girls, as AF_dad is staying home to work on this thesis. We have room in the minivan, though eleven_year old may go with a different family (I need to write a permission letter for them to take her across the border).