The lemon cake tasted as good as it smelled. I'm going to make another one sometime :)

This weekend's home project involves snarfling the skylights in my living room. While they dramatically emphasize the height of the ceiling, they also let in every minute of afternoon sun. I've removed the candles from the wall sconces over the fireplace since they melted into horizontal lumps from the directness of the sunlight.

My original goal was to buy some window cling stuff, but they cost $30 a roll and I would probably need more than one roll. Ouch. Instead I went cheap and got those acrylic sheets that are most commonly found covering fluorescent kitchen lights. They're $5 per sheet, much more reasonable. John and Michele brought over their famous Little Giant ladder and while they went off on another errand, I fought my terror of heights, measured the exact dimensions of the windows and then cut the acrylic. By the time John and Michele returned, I had done one window (though I'm going to fuss over it a bit as the sheets need some finessing). I get to keep the ladder till next weekend, which is good since I'm not done and it allows John to get out of anything needing the ladder. Win-win!

A special thanks to Broos, who's a splendid chap with a heart of gold :) He will disclaim, but it's true.

I made a lemon angel food cake tonight :) Hopefully it tastes fine; it certainly smells good. While I'd originally planned to make a lemon tart, I realized when I got home that I didn't have heavy cream. I did however have 8 eggs, which is exactly what this recipe called for. Currently cooling on the kitchen counter, it is :)

There are raccoons or feral cats in the tree outside my apartment. Last year when I moved in, there was a bird nest. Now I know why Melody spends all her time leaning against the screen. Around 3AM or so this morning, I heard a bit of yowling outside and thought, "There goes Melody; I'll miss her." Except that glancing at the window, I could see her fluffy tail wagging. I fell back asleep.

About 4AM, more yowling. This time I couldn't see Melody so I staggered to the window and started to close it. These windows are noisy suckers and as I pulled on it (noting in relief that the screen was intact), two dark cat-like shapes ran screaming down the tree trunk, disappearing into the underbrush. A few seconds later, Melody and Mitten had an argument on the bed and I had to chastise them. At least they were both indoors.

Hopefully, whatever those things were outside find someplace else to hang out tonight. I'm tired.

Here's a game you can play with your Tivo: ST:TNG Remote Racing! Game play: Record an episode. Predict when the commercials occur before the scene ending music begins and then hit fast forward 3. Resume playing after avoiding the commercials. Penalty: If you hear the music, you must watch the commercials; if you begin to play and it catches a commercial, you must watch the commercial. It provides great incentive to learning to finesse the remote because Spike TV has some of its worst shows advertised during ST:TNG. :/

Finished KotOR2 this weekend. It was most dissatisfying :/ Once you reach the last part, if you don't ask your opponent to tell you what happens to your cohorts, the game ends with an improbable cutscene. If you do ask what happens, you're subjected to half an hour of exposition.

I'm guessing they rushed this out the door to take advantage of the good hype about the original KotOR. While the story is pretty interesting, the overall impression is simply the game's not done yet. There's stuff that shows up on your in-game map that you can't get to because apparently, those areas were never completed but the indicators that they exist were never removed either. There's all the typos throughout. And there's missions you can take but then never finish unless you read a spoiler site that warns you to finish mission X before mission Y. A real shame, as I so enjoyed the first one.

A day of firsts. I caught the train from Solana Beach to Los Angeles to spend the day at E3. This is my first stop in Solana Beach and first train ride in California. And despite my fears that I would catch the wrong train and end up in Argentina, things went very well. As I waited for the train, some of the sound folks for the game arrived at the station so I knew I was pointed the correct way. One fear down, a million to go :)

Last year at E3, I lived an entirely different life. I wasn't working or living where I am now. My job, while interesting, wasn't exactly what I had wanted. My current employer sent me to E3 to interview with the folks who would become my supervisors and my entire life changed.

And in the past year, I've realized I love my current job. Every day seems a little different with different challenges or opportunities. There's stuff I wish would be different, but I'm able to get past those things.

One thing that I am not sure what to do with is my homesickness for Seattle. I miss the weather, the city, my friends, and most of all my cherubs. That makes me question whether I've made the right decision, to do what I love but live so far away from everything. I lived in Seattle for 20 years and know where to find X, Y or Z if I need to. Will it take 20 years for me to live here before I feel that same sense of connection to San Diego?

My worst fears about Episode 3 did not come to fruition, and some of my hopes were dashed as well. I did not attend a premiere with young Harrison Ford, but with young Candyce who got our tickets for the 10AM showing. I think Candyce was better company than Harrison would have been :)

The film is much better than the previous two, and although there are logic lapses throughout, it's not bad. We laughed, we cried. Two snaps up!

You know your mind is someplace else when you're grating parmesan cheese and wonder how some gouda wax got onto your grater, then realize oh...you've grated your thumb. :/

I've been playing KotOR 2 though I'm not quite finished with it yet. I've converted the majority of my cohorts into lovely Jedi, which is rather nice when you see three light sabers slicing and dicing the Sith. However, there's some stuff in this game that I'm not very fond of.

First, your conversations with other team mates seem to happen in huge chunks of expository. You can go for an entire planet without some of them having anything worthwhile to say, but once they get started you can't shut them up. Atton went on for about a half hour at one point :/ There's a lot of typos in the dialog. Grammar, I can get over but separately spelled 'seperately' twice in one paragraph nearly sent me over the edge.

Some of the AI is wonky, too. Every time I'm on the ship and talk to Atton, he never turns around to face me. He'll stand up, face out the front window and talk, which takes away some of the immersion. Then again, most of the time all he wants to do is play pazaak, even when I'm in the skimpy dancer girl outfit (which boosts my charisma ;>). I'm assuming he's the romantic interest in this edition, but since I've turned him into a Jedi, I suppose there's no romance in my future now!

Anyway, my thumb may feel grate (snicker) but I'm tired. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep through the night for a change.

Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? The women in game development list has interesting topics.

I got 8/10. :)

My coworker Jacob sold me his X-Box, together with several controllers, games and an HDTV connector cable. As Broos can irritatedly attest, my TV has but one plug thinger pooking out of it. So Sunday I set out in quest for a regular X-Box plugger-in cable.

First stop: Best Buy. It's pretty close to my apartment and I've had good experiences with them since moving to San Diego. As I look at the array of cables, controllers and peripherals for the X-Box, an employee stops and asks what I need. I explain that I'm looking for a regular cable since I only have the HDTV one and I want to hook the X-Box up. He glances at the shelves then says, "Let's go see if one's been returned; there aren't any out here."

I follow him to the return counter where he looks through the display of goods and says sadly, "Nope. None here, either."

"Rats. And I really need a plain cable since I can't plug the one I have into my TV."

Best Buy Dude perks up and announces cheerfully, "Well, we do have HDTVs in stock!"

That's the best up-sell line I've ever heard. :D I laughed so hard he started laughing with me.

In the end, I found my plain cable at Fry's and returned home to play KotOR 2, which I'm borrowing from Joe. You may know him as SimSlayer Joe :) He owes me! :)

Game night was a small gathering since half of the regulars are off on holiday. Some times, I've been so blue I feel like driving directly home after work, but I make myself at least drive down Mira Mesa, and of course once I'm on the roads leading to Kevin and Candyce's, I might as well go, so I do. Seeing so many happy couples in close proximity is painful. I don't think that I've ever seen such a concentration of happily married people. It's unnatural. ;)

My ex-husband's family used to get together to play games which was always fun, but my cherubs were always excluded. Dave's mom comes from the generation of children being fed at the little table, which is something I didn't appreciate. When my sister and I were small, we always ate with whatever grown ups came to visit, and when mom threw big parties we would get to help grill and cook. Putting children away separately always felt wrong.

Rob and I had a hard time finding games that we could play together peacefully because we're both competitive. Too often we'd end up arguing after playing something that such and such a move was too allowed, or wasn't, or whether he'd been ganged up on by me and the cherubs. The stress level made it impossible to enjoy playing anything together except something like SWG where we each specialized in something for the good of the team.

Game night here is a nice respite. The attendees are always friendly and welcoming. Games are chosen that appeal to both the "kill them all to win" and "cooperative play only" folks. Candyce always has a big hug for everyone. Broos always shares his groan-worthy puns. John is "always" the werewolf. :) It's a little bit of stability and community.

A traffic tip for clueless drivers:

When your interstate on-ramp is metered, and the little sign beneath the light says "Two cars, this lane, per green," they mean that two cars get to go when the light turns green. Not, two cars can make it through when the light is green but if it turns red and you haven't made it you must stop cold in your tracks. Nor, if you're talking on the phone and hesitate and the light changes you just sit there while the person behind you has to throw his or her hands into the air in frustration at your stupidity. Two cars per green light when indicated. It's not rocket science. It's math, and even I can count to two.

I've been thinking about Kevin and Candyce's wedding (she changed the spelling of her name after someone horribly mispronounced it :>) and how I could attend. It's not until 2006, but I like to plan ahead, especially when it's going to be a pretty significant expense.

To that end, I signed up at a website I found through an article in today's WSJ. From that website, I found a DreamMap, which I think is pretty spiffy. You enter your city and how much you're willing to pay and it shows you some of the options available.

I fiddled around with different websites to see what the approximate cost will be, and I'd probably be best off if I could go for at least a week. If I had the funding, I'd like to spend a couple of weeks wandering around the UK. I've never been there so I should make the most of it, right? :)

So to investigate a flight to Galway, I have to wait till September. Apparently most of these website will not allow folks to check on flights over a year away. I'm looking to stay at a B&B. It'll be a 'spensive trip. The amount I'd spend would buy an awful lot of gewgaws as wedding gifts.