Decision made

I’ve decided which camera to buy. I’m going with the Nikon D40. Buying the less expensive of my options will allow me to get going sooner and put the savings toward the purchase of a better lens. So I plan on buying from Amazon on the 30th. Unless, at that time, it looks like Best Buy is a better choice.

So I hope to have plenty of new photos start appearing on my flickr page very soon.

Lord of the Rings Online, Book 11 torrent available now from Turbine

Turbine has released the LOTRO Book 11 early as a torrent download. The changes will not be applied until Oct. 25th, but you can download and install the patch early to avoid having to wait on release day.

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Music at St. Stanislaus revisited

A few weeks ago, I told the powers that be at St. Stanislaus that I wanted to stop doing the music at the Saturday evening Mass. I said that I’d continue through the end of the year but as of the latter part of December, someone else needed to step up. I suggested that perhaps I could alternate weeks with someone. So Cathy spoke to Kyle and Kyle agreed to alternate weeks with me. But, rather than wait for the end of the year, he was ready to start this next weekend. So, effective immediately, I only do the music every other week.

The Bad: This will mean slightly less income for the next couple of months. Sharing a Mass means that there is much greater chance for inconsistency to develop in the repertoire and so forth.

The Good: Some of my Saturdays will no longer be interrupted midway through the day. Maybe this will lead to greater cooperation amongst the musicians at the various Masses. I won’t burn out so soon.

Now if only Mike comes back to resume playing at the 8:30 on Sunday mornings, I can go down to one Mass per weekend again.

Lori’s party photos

As promised, here are some photos from my friend Lori’s party.

Weekend recap

So I had a really good weekend. On Friday night, I went out with about 20 coworkers to celebrate Lori’s birthday. People started to gather at Lori’s house at 7:00 and we had some drinks, appetizers, makeup checks, etc. At 8:00, the limo arrived and we took some final group photos and left for dinner. We arrived at Fuzio’s and met more of our party that were there waiting for us. Dinner was good and we made sure that everyone who walked by our group knew that we’d arrived in a limo.

After dinner (and more drinks) we piled back into our sweet, sweet ride and cruised around town for a bit. We hit several clubs that night and a good time was had by all.

On Saturday, I overslept and missed a meeting of the Parish Coordinators for the Catholic Legislative Network from our diocese. Oh well. I am happy to report that I was productive that morning, nonetheless. I straightened up my place, putting away boxes, thoroughly vacuuming the entire house, and putting a slip cover back on the couch. I even did some dishes. Mary came over in the afternoon to watch a couple episodes of Survivor (so now we’re only 1 behind!) and I showed her Pushing Daisies, which she liked.

I played for Mass, as usual and afterwards, went out to P. Wexford’s to enjoy the Irish Sessuin that occurs on the first Saturday of each month. My friend, Tawny and her sister met me there and we had a fun time talking and sharing stories.

Sunday, I woke up late and had to rush to get to church for the 8:30 Mass. I was on time but my voice was not ready for the day. I played/sang for 2 Masses but I had the 11:30 off because the Philipino group plays on the first Sunday of every month. I stopped at the taco trucks to get a burrito on the way home and bought lunch for a homeless guy, Mark. For the rest of the day, I played LOTRO with Danny, Lance, and Suzanne. Finally, in the evening I watched a little TV and stayed up too late playing Alpha Centauri on the computer.

Good times.

Lori’s birthday

My friend and coworker, Lori, turned 40 yesterday. You’d never know it to look at her. She looks no older than 30. The other girls in her office had a surprise breakfast for her in the morning. The office was decorated quite nicely and there were pastries, bagels, fruit, linguisa, pancakes, an egg bake casserole, muffins, and orange juice. There were also many visitors present and it was a really nice thing for Lori.

Tomorrow night, a bunch of us are going out to dinner downtown. We’re going to pile into a limo and party it up into the wee hours of the morning. This is a White Party so all the ladies will be dressed in white while the men get to wear slacks or jeans with white shirts. I expect that everyone will look great and it should be a lot of fun. Maybe I’ll have pictures to share afterwards.

The fall season

One of the first things I do every morning when I get into work is to check my email. This includes my work email, MySpace email, and my gmail account; sometimes Yahoo email but almost never my SBC Global account. With MySpace, there’re not only messages to read, but bulletins from friends, new friend requests (from girls who are wondering why MySpace won’t let them post their sexy pictures) to mark as spam, and blog postings.

So I read a blog posting this morning from my friend Tawny. She was writing about her reaction to the fall TV series premier week. This made me realize that I need to let you all know about what I am watching these days. So here goes.

Mondays
A very busy night for the ole tivo. I have Chuck, Heroes, Journeyman, and Prison Break. There’s also a dumb sitcom called The Big Bang Theory that is pretty lame but the theme song is by the Barenaked Ladies. So I’m giving the show a shot in case it gets better.

Tuesdays
House

Wednesdays
Bionic Woman, Life, and a quirky little show called Pushing Daisies

Thursdays
Another busy night. Survivor: China, Smallville, My Name Is Earl, The Office, Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style. I’m going to check out Big Shots as well to see if it’s any good.

Fridays
Stargate: Atlantis

Saturdays
Sundays
I don’t think I’m recording anything on these nights right now.

I’m not sure what night it comes on but I am recording Survivorman too. It’s more for something to have on in the background while I’m on the computer than a show I need to sit and watch.

Starting in the near to medium future, I will be recording Law and Order: Criminal Intent, 24, Lost, and Battlestar Galactica. And as I’ve posted about before, when they come back I’ll record Psych, Monk, Eureka, and Burn Notice.

Thanks to my friend, Tawny, for the inspiration to post this!