The Lost Realm

Yes, today was Chilli Festival time again. I can’t quite explain why I like this particular little vegetable so much. This year saw us bring home quite a sizeable loot, so I think we should be well stocked for a while. I believe my dream of having chilli for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (in a single day) may now come true.

This year Ely came along with us. While she is possibly more of a chilli eater than Carolyn, she discovered the hard way why you shouldn’t just dive into the hottest chilli for tasting. After much arm waving, tongue dousing, and general jumping up and down, she recovered enough to make the most of the huge range of things to scoff. I mean taste. Yes, taste. We were all consummate professionals.

Lessons learned today:

• Almost no one is polite or well-mannered these days. Please, thank you, or just a friendly smile is far too difficult for most.
• People will smoke at a smoke-free event. Sitting in the dry leaf litter.
• The majority of parents don’t seem very concerned about their toddlers falling into large bodies of water.
• Some chilli really is just too hot. But it’s fun to burn your sinuses clean once in a while.

Also, the made-at-home-this-evening chilli ice cream (ice cream topped with caramel nutty chilli crunchy things) was excellent. Take that, people who refuse to sell me proper chilli ice cream.

Did you know that, after six weeks of doing absolutely nothing, doing something is hard. My brain has turned into a purposeless, mushy substance.

My plan was to blog more. I’d simply wait for interesting things to happen, and then write about them.

This plan has been thwarted, though in the best of ways.

I’m about half-way through my holiday and, so far, it has meant a whole lot of doing absolutely nothing. This is, of course, my definition of the perfect holiday. It has been over 10 years since I’ve taken a real break from work. The last time I can remember having this much time to myself was during my undergraduate years.

I’ve been just hanging out at home, relaxing, tinkering with things, playing Nintendo Wii (a family Christmas present) with the kids, playing PC games until far too late at night, and sleeping in (oh, how I will miss sleeping in). Carolyn and I even managed to have a real, actual date, just like grown ups! Not only was it almost two years to the day since we met, but I believe it was the first time we’ve actually had a “romantic” night out.

So if you’re wonder where all the blogging is, it’s not here. It’s on holiday, doing as little as possible.

My New Year’s Resolution: 1680×1050.

…

That joke still isn’t funny, is it?

It all started when I asked for a Bumblebee. Carolyn answered on behalf of the universe, and Bumblebee appeared:

After that, Talk Like a Pirate Day brought about the world’s first pirate herb garden, containing a pirate ship lovingly hand-crafted from balsa wood:

After the pirate ship, Carolyn secretly worked on yet another balsa project. Then, just before Christmas (because she couldn’t wait), I was given a small package that contained this:

I shall never, ever, ever incinerate you, my weighted companion cube

Duke Nukem Forever is out! Well, at least the teaser trailer. The sad part is that it doesn’t actually look as interesting as the trailer they released in 2001 or even this joke trailer.

It’s taken 10 years of development to make it… worse?