Its Christmas Time in the City!

Merry Christmas!!

Wow! What a Christmas! Somer and I went to my parent's last night, as is tradition, and hung out for awhile, then went back this morning at 6:30 a.m. to see my nieces open their presents. My god are they cute. At ages 2 and 3 it really magical to see their little faces just learning about Santa and getting all sorts of fun stuff.

We actually got up at about 5:45 this morning so that we could have a little christmas here at the apt. before we headed out. I have to say Somer really blew me away with all the great stuff she gave me. I got The Dark Knight on Blu-Ray, TONS of clothes, a food processor (I love to cook,) Funnel Cake batter, lots of candy, a sweet PC game that I am going to try out right after I write this blog, Brisinger, a couple of great CDs, and then to top it all off I got Guitar Hero World Tour on PS3 with 2 guitars!

I have to say though that my favorite part was surprising Somer with her gift. Here at our apt. she got a couple CDs and a couple of cute little trinkets, but after all the commotion at my parents I had one more gift to give her and it actually made her cry. Awwwww I almost cried too! I think she will post about it so I wont say here, you'll have to read her blog later.

Anyways, Merry Christmas!!

What could possibly be going on!?!

The answer to that question is a resounding, "Not much!"

That's right. Not much is going on here... well unless you could count Somer's Birthday, Christmas, and New Years. I guess when you look at it that way, there really is a lot going on!

I find that pretty funny, to be honest. Any time anyone asks me "how's it goin?" or "whats up?" I tend to always say something along the lines of "oh nothing," or "nadda," or even if I'm especially tired or 'out of it' I may even throw out a resounding "pretty good!" but usually the answer is "Not much." I suppose what I find so funny is that there is almost always something going on! I don't really have anything else to add to that, but I did find it funny and thought that I would comment on it.

Perhaps the next time someone asks I'll actually answer truthfully... "Oh my, what a question... For starters, I'm here at work and quite literally hating every moment of it. Oh sure, there are times that I enjoy my job, but very rarely does it happen while I'm actually working, right now I'm kind of enjoying myself, but that is mainly due to the fact that I'm talking to you about my day, and not some rich asshole teacher/lawyer/doctor/librarian/vet/mechanic/business owner from new york that is pissed off about their 4 week vacation in aruba that was ruined because there was a tree 'near' their window, and they only had a 1/4th ocean view... no right now I'm talking to you, and that is eternally better. Other than all that I suppose there are other things going on. Recently I've been playing a game on my PS3, but you don't really care, I only have about 3 people I can talk to about that... The majority of the people I sit next to think that games are juvenile and adults shouldn't be playing them. I could argue with them about that statement saying the game I'm currently playing lets me buy a hooker, or blow somebodies head off, making it's target audience people my age, but you'll more than likely disagree. Hmmm what else is going on? It is currently 1 week from Christmas and I'm finished shopping, THANK GOD."

I think by the time I've rattled all of this off, unless its one of you reading this who asked, I have probably offended someone... I guess thats the reason I just answer "oh not much."

Well, thats all for now I suppose.

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

I just started a new book, the title is the name. It is pretty damn hilarious, all about some guy, Tucker Max, and his story of drunken debauchery.

The book is just a bunch of story stories, none of which really related, and I'm not sure that I could sit and read the whole thing. I did read a few chapters, an hours worth, and I was laughing out loud at quite a few of them. Last night in bed I was reading the first one and Somer actually got pissed at me because I was laughing so hard. =)

Like I said, I don't think I can read it straight through, but I'll definetly be picking it up and reading a story or two every once in a while.

Gotta find something with an actual story to be able to read it straight through.

Thomas

Finished Jack and Josie

Ok I finished it! It was really good. Dark and funny, but probably only funny to a dark mind with a dark sense of humor... the kind of person that might see something horrible, but find the funny in it... like me! =)

Took another hour to finish, so I guess I'll put up the hour.

I'm thinking of reading the second book in the Ender's series next, because I loved Ender's game so much. But then again, I also have a huge list of books I've been buying and getting as gifts that I have yet to read. I'll update on here with what I pick :P

Thomas

Jack and Josie

Another 1.5 hours done, its turned into a big city adventure lol

They are struggling to get by and Jack is turning into a real asshole. It's working really well, but there isn't much left of the book, I'm starting to wonder how everything will come together to actually resolve.

Thomas

Jack and Josie

I had a pretty good weekend. It was lazy, which for me equals good. I had the chance to read another hour and 30 mins of "Jack and Josie" and it definetly is a dark book. There are some underlying tones coming out, where these two kids with an abusive father start to fight back, and then eventually leave.
Still a good read =)

Thomas

New Book -- Lego Indiana Jones -- Something that bugs the shit out of me!

NEW BOOK

The new book is called "Josie and Jack," and when Somer picked it for me I thought it looked like a girly book. Then I started reading it and started to think there was a brother/sister love thing going on, which pretty muched turned me off. However the back of the cover states that its really dark and engrossing so I kept on reading. Its getting really good! I know that Somer wants to read this one when I'm done, so no spoilers here, but it is getting really good and I can feel something horrible about to happen. Good stuff!

LEGO INDIANA JONES

Ok so I rented this one, played it for an hour, and boxed it up for return... It's just not my style. Oh well!

SOMETHING THAT REALLY BUGS THE SHIT OUT OF ME!

I came in to work today, and found that anything Game related has been blocked at work... marvelous. The one thing that I've always liked about my job was that if work was a little slow or I was on an extended hold I could read about a game... I had some freedom to be myself at work, now I feel that work is turning into a nazi training camp and we aren't allowed to do anything but sit here miserable and apologize for some dumbass in corporate who made a bad decision....

Thomas - miserable, but reading to play video games...

Finished Idlewild and Whats Goin' On...

Well here we are, Wednesday night Nov 19, 2008... I have come to the realization that I need to do something with my life. Sure, I've thought it before, but it always gets pushed to the back on my mind and other things take priority, mainly trying to live with what I've got currently.

This week I realized that I hate my job, and in order to get a job, or career, that I do enjoy I am going to have to go back to school... Great! I haven't been in an actual class for over 6 years now! When I graduated High School I immediately started at the University of Utah with a major of electronic engineering; Huge Mistake! I went for two full semesters, took the summer off, then returned and made it through a third semester. At that point I realized that I didn't want anything to do with electronic engineering, and I had just wasted almost two years of my life, and around $5,000... Awesome... I took a few years off of school and then a buddy of mine found this great looking training school for computer networking. It sounded really good, and showed that it had been around for a long time, the only drawback was the $18,000 tuition. The course was supposed to last 9 months, and in that time I would get certified to work at a high paid network specialist. My friend and I both bit, and for a while it was actually pretty nice. I lived with my parents at the time so I was able to pay my loan about $500 a month, instead of paying rent, which helped me to get the whole damn student loan paid off much faster... the problem... After 5 months of class I was certified with all the basic stuff, and with those certs i could probably get a job that paid about $10 an hour, all that was left was the big certs... the ones that qualified me for the big bucks.. I get ready to go to school one day, drive there, go up to the building... the door was locked! I found this strange so I started calling the people that ran the joint, and couldn't get a hold of anyone.

Long story short, they claimed bankruptcy... they already had my 18 grand, because it was a loan, and there wasn't then, or isn't know a god damn thing I could do about it. I had accomplished jack-shit, paid way more money that I had, and had nothing to show for it.

Now its been years, and I know that I can't start at a new job for even close to what I make now, which sickens me because I don't make very good money.

SO the plan is to find a school I can go to for graphic/game design... I want to make video games.. hell I love playing them, it would be freakin sweet if I could be a part of making one.

Ok sorry about all that but I had to vent, and thought this would be a good place to put it.

Idlewild--

Finished the book last night. I started reading while on breaks at work yesterday and got to a point in the book where I just didn't want to put it down! It really is Matrixish ( i know that's not a word, but its the closest thing to a word that I could use to describe this book.) The virtual school I mentioned earlier turns out to be a virtual world inside of a virtual world... very strange. What happens is that there is this plague "black-ep" that is spreading around the world very rapidly, and the human race pretty much resigns itself to extinction, until a company comes up with a plan. They create babies that grow up their entire lives in huge "vaultish" buildings, plugged into this virtual world, inside that virtual world they grow up and are sent to a virtual school. All of this is to train them to research and destroy the virus when they become 21. On their 21st birthday the students are supposed to "graduate" the virtual school, and when they get unplugged there are videos waiting for them to explain the whole situation. However things to horribly wrong as one students manages his way to hacking himself out of all of it early, and decides he wants to be sole savior of the earth and tries to kill the other students while they are still plugged in.

JUST IN CASE you were thinking of reading this book I won't spoil the ending, but I have to say that after around page 100 the book is a breeze. I really enjoyed it and would actually recommend it.

Thomas - Idlewild Complete

PS Somer has given me a new reading assignment for double points. This one is called "Josie and Jack." I'll probably start on it tonight.

Idlewild - Hour 3 Complete

Well Idlewild is starting to shape up, I just read for about an hour straight and I was interested the whole time!

It is getting a little less introductory and a little more story driven, which is good because I hate introduction sections of books to last more than maybe a chapter or two, in this case it lasted almost 100 pages... a little much for me. I prefer the book to jump right in and explain things as it goes, rather than go on and on about who everyone is and why before they ever get to any story line.

All the students in the Virtual Reality School are starting to work together to figure out what is going on, it has something to do with one of the students going missing but they have all been told that he actually graduated. They can't contact him and he just disapeared one day. They are hacking the system to hide their conversations, programming neat programs of virtual people to interact with, and they have started to introduce new people as the story goes on.

I like it, finaly I really like the book :P

Thomas

Idlewild - Part 2 - 2nd hour complete

Man this book is a little harder to get into, but I can now see why they say its a book for the Matrix Generation. All the crazy shit that happened at the very beginning turns out to be a Virtual Reality school. There are 10 students, 9 now because one "graduated," and they are all plugged into this school full time with an IV drip.

Apparently the students are really a fan of the school because they all have made hacks to the system and manage to break out once in a while.

I have to say that this book is definetly not as easy to read as some others, but after about page 75 it gets a bit easier, things start to flow better, the story starts to make sense, and you can almost connect with the main character.

I'll let you know how it goes from this point on, its ok, but not great just yet.

Thomas - Idlewild hour 2 complete (2x Points)

New Book - Idlewild (good for double points!)

"A genuine page-turner. Absolutely fun, like a roller-coaster ride of fusion fiction: starts our like Amber meets The Matrix, and as it goes on, it turns in several something elses. . . . Gripping . . . the kind of book you simply don't want to stop reading." -Neil Gaiman

"The essential read for the Matrix generation-- download now! Sagan has a ferocious imagination; I caught echoes of Gibson, Egan, Stephenson. A great read!" -Stephen Baxter

"Multiple layers . . unfold like onion skins in this future shocker. . . . Wonderful." -Kirkus Reviews

Ok so for my second book in this little "hobby-a-round" I let Somer pick my book, and she picked a pretty descent one. I put all the quotes from the back of the book up above, and so far they aren't quite "right-on" but its getting there.

One thing I think I need to point out is that this should not be confused with the recent movie release.

Andre 3000 and Big Boi were not a part of this crazy ass book.

But I do have to say that this book is crazy! So far some guy wakes up in the middle of nowhere, doesn't know who he is or why is there. All he remembers is that he was shocked... really badly... after laying there he realizes that he knows other things as well, like now to tell the temperature based on cricket chirps per second. He wanders around not knowing where he is going but ending up a house that feels familiar. Eventually he finds his name is "Halloween." That was where it got really strange.

I do like this book and will see it through to the end, so far it is enjoyable and I just need to get into a rhythm in order to finish it.

Thomas - Idlewild - 1 hour complete (2x points!)

P.S. Somer finally broke down and played some Little Big Planet last night. I walked her through the first few levels and showed her the ropes. She seemed to like it, and I really had a blast teaching her and helping her to not get all pissed off because of a couple lost lives. One of the great things about the game is that it can be challenging, but it is also really forgiving. I'm hoping she will want to sit down and play with me a bit more often, I was really proud of her last night, she didn't freak out and toss the controller once! =)

Ender's Game - 3 hours complete, book finished

WOW

That was an awesome book, I literally couldn't put it down! Like I said before, you get attatched to little Ender. You have to figure out how this could possibly end well!

I really liked the end of the book and want to go find the second book soon, I think it's called "Speaker of the Dead."

Great great great great book, everyone who reads even a little, or likes science fiction movies or books should read it for sure.

Thomas - 3 hours - Ender's Game Complete

Enders Game part 2 - Hour 2 complete

Well I have to say that I'm very pleased with Ender's Game.

In fact, I'm so pleased with it that I will not write anything about the book's story, because I think everyone should read it!

I'm currently 172 pages in, and I'm sure I've read for more than an two hours, but I'm only going to count it as an hour since I haven't kept official time.

One thing that this book does better than most that I have read is make you feel like your in the character's head. You see their thoughts and reasonings, and you feel for them. I was surprised to find an entire chapter from Ender's sister's view, and it was cool because I was just starting to wonder about them... somehow the author paced this book perfectly so far.

Thomas - Hour 2 complete!

Link to my old blog.

So back when Somer and I started getting serious she asked me to write a blog. So here it is, my old blog link:
http://thomas-matt.blogspot.com/

1st post - Ender's Game

Somer and I went to a little book store in Sugarhouse and I managed to pick up a copy of Ender's Game by Orsen Scott Card. I had heard a lot about this book from friends, and have been meaning to read it for awhile.

I sat down at the store and read the first chapter, and it was so good that I needed to buy it and now I have read for about an hour and am on page 62.

So far, the book is about a 6 year old boy that was the third born in his family. It hasn't actually said anything about what year it is in the book, but it starts out on Earth. Aparently families are not allowed to have more than 2 children without government approval, but since Ender's older brother Peter and older sister Valentine were both very smart and considered "genious" they were granted permission to have a third child. His brother hates me because it makes him feel like he wasn't good enough, and his sister loves him very much.

The book actually starts with some people talking about Ender, and how it was time to have his "monitor" taken out. The monitor apparently allowed these people to hear, see, and feel everything that ender heard, saw, or felt. Now that nobody is watching out for Ender mean kids at school pick on him for being a "Third" and his brother threatens to kill him. There was a really fun part in the book right after he had his "monitor" removed were a group of bullies attacked him and he fought back by kicking the older leader of the bullies square in the chest knocking him to the ground. He doesn't stop there however because he wants to end all the future fights with these boys, and continues to kick him in the ribs, groin, and face, telling the other kids to leave him alone or else it will be worse for thim.

Later that evening a government official comes to the house to talk to Ender about why he continued to beat on the boy, even though he had already won the fight. His answer was enough to convince the official that Ender was special and recruit him for training. The Earth is at war with a group of aliens known as the Buggars, and Ender could be the one that could stop them.

Where I am now, he is in training and doing well but noboby likes him because he is so good. I'll update later with what I read. This has definetly been one of the better books I've read lately and I plan on finishing it really quickly.

Thomas -- 1 hour of reading complete :P

Introduction

Recently Somer and I decided that it would fun to interact more with each other's hobbies. You see, I love to play video games and Somer loves books. We are going to take part of each other's interests and blog about them. We decided that simply partaking was probably not enough to help her *Want* to play videogames, so we created a rewards system.

For each hour we spent partaking in the other's hobby, we can earn up to 3 bucks!

From this point forward I will be writing about what I'm reading, and Somer will be setting up a blog to post about her video game playing.

Wish us luck :P