Zombies, Cannibals, and a Chinchilla

This past weekend I saw a movie, with GM and AE, Shaun of the Dead. It was basically a spoof on zombie movies. The amazing thing is that it was absolutely hilarious while at the same time being fairly gross and actually scary. Now, I'm not one to watch scary movies, so the avid horror aficionado might not find it that scary at all, but I was happy to be watching it on a 19" television with several people around. If you like very funny movies that are pretty intense and don't mind very crude language, disgusting gore or zombies, then this is probably the movie for you.

In other news, I did my taxes. There weren't any snags there, thankfully.

I attended a baby shower on Monday. I believe that was my first.

Guitar practice has been going well. In addition to Brown Eyed Girl and Country Roads, I've been working on Cannibals, by Mark Knopfler, and Sitting on the Dock of the Bay, by Otis Redding. It's been getting more and more fun playing my guitar with JJ and EB, as I get better. Playing with a group is such a different experience from playing solo, because you put so much more energy into listening while you're playing. At least, that's what I've observed so far.

On Saturday night, I went over to JB and EG's house, with AE, and we played Loaded Questions. I've been a long time since I've played that, but it's truly an excellent game. It's so much more about self discovery and getting to know other people than it is about winning or losing, which makes it very cool. They have a new chinchilla, PB, which is adorable.

Tonight I used a nifty free tool, HTTrack, to backup my entire blog onto disk. I've been meaning to do that for a while and it was very simple.

I don't usually like to predict the future in my blog, but I've taken a lot of other good photos lately and I hope to show them off soon.

Belated Tale of an Alarming Day

I should really just post what I'm thinking at the time rather composing full chapters or volumes.For example, I wrote this about ten days ago and then saved the draft. I should have just posted it.

I took this cool photo of the moon over Duke Chapel just before I went inside to work one morning.



I was vanless for almost two weeks while my van was in the body shop. This was fairly traumatic for me. I had to remember what I used to do before I could drive. I had to get rides to and from places. The horror. That is way more complicated.

It was way more complicated when NC and I were going to take my dad's car from the library over to the the American Tobaco Campus for a meeting. It was particularly complicated when we discovered that his car had a car alarm. Let me state, for the record, that it does. Neither of my parents nor I knew that the car has an alarm. It's very loud. My dad ran over from his building and figured out how to shut it off for us. We tried to recreate the problem in my garage that night and it seems as if you repeat the convoluted steps that we did that it goes off about 25% of the time. Note that it seems a lot louder in an enclosed space. In any case, that was a fairly hilarious (but loud) portion of the day.

A Beautiful March

A few weeks ago, at work, we had our annual/semi-annual retreat at the Dave Thomas Center. It was a lot of fun and I believe it was productive, too. The food at the Thomas Center was delicious. They had three kinds of quiche and fried cauliflower. Several people said beforehand that they had Ben & Jerry's bars, but they didn't this year, because it was a different type of room. This is actually a good thing, because they wouldn't have fit.

That week was spring break at Duke, so there were many fewer students around and fewer lunch options. Fortunately, Twinnie's was open and this provided many excellent views of the gorgeous daffodils that have been planted in the perennial garden at CIEMAS. The weather was lovely and very windy, too. You can see Bostock, the new part of Perkins Library, where I work, in that picture.

It was March, so that meant that it was time to set up a yahoo group and fill out my NCAA tournament bracket. I got 5 other people to participate in a group at work, so that's been fun. Unfortunately, the first game was very late, so I only ended up watching the first half.

Friday, I met AE, KD and JH at Chai's and then we went to Shade Tree Coffee. We played hearts for most of the evening. AE hadn't ever played before and JH did an excellent job of explaining it. Hearts is one of my favorite card games. Note that I am not saying that I am extraordinarily good at it, but I really enjoy it. JH introduced a new twist by getting us to play in teams. That adds an entirely new element and it' s fun.

Saturday, AE, JH and my dad came over to watch the 2nd round Duke basketball tournament game. I made macaroons and we played hearts again. I was going to go to JJ's and practice guitar, but the battery in my van was dead.

Sunday, we went to ACME, where I had lobster linguini and a strawberry shortcake. They donated a really generous gift certificate for the CIT Showcase, too.