Comcast still sucks...

But it's the only game in town, so they'll be getting our business anyway. We cancelled comcast about a year ago after many frustrations with the service constantly going down and the bill constantly going up. After having clearwire for a year, we are going to have to go back to comcast. Clearwire is alright, and the performance is ok (once we figured out that the router and the modem interfere with each other, and moved them away from each other, the service was good). Unfortunately its just too slow. Download speeds are in the 150 kbps range. Yuck. Its like the days of dial up, except without the beep-beep-boop-beep sign-on song.

So we decided to go back to Comcast, with very low expectations... And so far we haven't been dissappointed. During the sign up process, we were mislead about the price, and then argued with over the phone. We got through that and scheduled an installation. And we are still waiting. We have rescheduled 3 times....hopefully the fourth times a charm, but somehow I doubt it. The first time the guy came out, he said he didn't have the proper equipment, the second time, it was a snow storm, so they didn't come (I give them that one). The third time, they guy said that he needed a back up guy to get to the pole. He had the equipment, but it is too heavy to carry with one guy. So next week is try #4. Maybe by February we'll be up and running...I hope.



Other than dealing with comcast, we spent the weekend playing with our favorite new toy. I'm still enjoying Fable, and Ethan yelled at NBA Live quite a bit, which I think means he likes it :)


We were spending so much time with our new friend Xbox, Abbey was feeling pretty neglected.

I did take some time to jog on the treadmill...I'm going to need a whole lot more of that to make up for the holiday gorge fest.

Speaking of which, I tried making french baguettes again. They actually turned out really good this time.

I have been a baking machine this holiday! I just finished another batch of Gingerbread cookies for our little holiday party at work tomorrow.

We went to the movies last night and saw "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". I thought it was a great movie. It's a little weird, so I don't recommend it for everyone, but overall it was a good drama and had an interesting perspective on life and death. There was a lot of death in the movie...so it might be a bit depressing for some.

Tonight it's time to relax in front of the TV, fold the piles of laundry in the bedroom, and mentally prepare to go back to work in the AM. I wish I had more days off! It's always sad when the holidays come to an end...

Happy Holidays!

We had an X-Box themed Christmas this year! Pretty much everything was video game related. The day started out bright and early, tearing open presents in front of the fire place:

Even Abbey wanted in on the fun!

Look at those fingers go! Wrapping paper has never flown off the package so nimbly.

Ethan's big gift

The living room after the X-Box invasion...

After the present mania subsided, Ethan tested out the X-box with NBA Live 09, while I baked the most delicious cinnamon roles ever. I made some modifications to the recipe, including using half white sugar and half brown (I ran out of brown sugar). This made the filling taste like caramel..yum! Also, I put nutmeg in, because I just like nutmeg. Be warned, they are about 500 calories each. But so worth it:

After we gorged ourselves on cinnamon sugary goodness, I played Fable 2 for about 4 hours, until I got a headache from squinting at the TV. I take back everything I said in the last post about video games not being fun anymore. I love this game! It's like a cross between the Sims and an adventure game. It's so addictive.

When I got sick of that, I made Christmas dinner. We decided to try something different this year, so I made a pork loin roast instead of the traditional ham. I brined the roast over night and then stuffed it with spinach, lemon, rice and kalamata olives. It was pretty good...not the best, not the worst. It sure did look pretty though.

Stuffed Roast Beast! Before cooking

Between the roast and the cinnamon rolls, the kitchen was a disaster!

After dinner, Ethan helped me clean up and we went to Zoolights at the PDZA. It was pretty cold, but we got some hot cocoa and tea to warm us up. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to take any good night shots with my camera. My hands are not steady enough and everything comes out blurry. I did get a couple of the Aquarium, including the one shown below of all the sharks napping together. Who knew sharks did that? Not me.

That's pretty much it. We came home and Ethan went to bed. He has to work all weekend, but will get paid extra for it, so that's alright. I'm spending the rest of my vacation hanging out at home and playing with my new toys.

Happy holidays friends!

Twas the night before christmas...

And we have been stuck inside all day! This darn snow:

Won't go away!

It's finally raining, so that's wonderful. Hopefully that means the snow will melt soon and I can get out of the driveway! In the meantime, we are keeping entertained with a variety of indoor activities. I downloaded a new video game, called "Oblivion". Unfortunately due to my crappy internet connection and poor video card, it took forever and doesn't run well.



I always think I want to play video games, and then I play them and realize that stuff was way more fun 15 years ago. I think it's sad how things become less fun as you get older. I wish everything could still be as exciting as it was when I was 12 years old. Oh well, that's life I guess.



So we moved on to other forms of entertainment, including cleaning the house, building a fire:





Playing a card game (Catan something or other) and baking french Baguettes....mmmm.

The french bread turned out pretty well. I made the first half of it in the bread machine, and the second half in the oven. It didn't rise quite right - I think I left it in the bread machine too long. But it tastes great.

Tonight, it's on to other home based pursuits, including watching Batman TDK and Indiana Jones.




Here's to getting out of the house tomorrow...if I have to hear Ethan sing overly dramatic christmas music, and substitute the names "Mary" and "Abbey"randomly (...Gone awaaaay, is the ABBEY, here to stay is a Mary Bird!) one more time, I'm going to scream. Or someone's going to lose a limb. I'm pretty sure that's not how the song is supposed to go!

At least the live piano music is good ;)

Merry christmas all!