Saturday Tammy and I spent the day shopping for clothes and house stuff. That was fun.

Sunday I spent a couple hours replacing some landscape lights (CL131) in the front of our house that had seen better days with brand new ones. That was easy but tiring, especially in the heat! It got up near 90 I’m sure. I also pulled some weeds.

It felt good to finish those lights, and when we drove back home after dinner that night we were looking forward to seeing how much better they looked. The lights shoot straight up beneath two small palm trees on either side of our garage and really look nice when they’re working.

Well they look good all right – too good! They’re so damn bright that they not only light up the palm trees, but they also light up almost the entire wall behind them! It’s really too much.

At first I was worried that I’d need to dig up all of my hard work and replace those brand new lights with smaller ones. But then I realized that I can just replace the 20 watt bulbs with 10 watt bulbs. Adoyeee!

Oh yeah, Saturday I played some Zelda on the GBA. I’m liking the SP more and more. The rechargeable battery lasts a lot longer than the one I’ve been using in my old school GBA.

I think the SNES/GBA Zelda is probably the best in the series. My second favorite Zelda game is probably that one they made for the black and white Game Boy back in the day. I can’t remember what it was called though. Anyway, it was good.

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Oh yeah, I totally forgot! Zelda: The Wind Waker arrived yesterday! I played it for a few hours last night and got pretty far, but I was really tired and had a conference call early this morning, so I couldn’t play it as much as I wanted.

Seems cool. Most of the soundtrack is just remixes of Zelda64 songs though, and that gives me flashbacks to a less-fun gaming experience! At least they sound like they’re played on real instruments now, so it’s not too bad.

Control is decent. I don’t understand why all of these reviewers think the GameCube controller is the greatest thing ever. I think it’s huge and awkward, but I’m getting a ‘handle’ on it so to speak. Yuk yuk.

The map in the first dungeon is pretty much useless, even with the compass, so that was a little frustrating. But anyway, I’m now at the point where I just bought a sail for the dragon boat thing from this eskimo guy. That’s where I left off last night.

I won’t get another chance to play until Monday, but until then I have my GBA SP to keep me company!

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My new GBA SP just arrived! The battery is charging now, but I snuck in a few minutes of playtime to test it out.

Pretty impressive! The light is bright and evenly distributed on the screen. It’s lighter and smaller than the original GBA, and much easier to transport without worrying about scratching the screen.

The buttons all feel very weird though. Not much pressure is required to activate them, and they make little ‘click’ sounds when they’re pressed. Also, the A and B buttons seem to be spaced farther apart. It takes some getting used to, but it’s altogether a much more pleasant experience than the original GBA.

I’ve got a first-generation flash cartridge (one of the tall ones) and it almost didn’t fit in the slot! I really had to jam it in there, but it’s working fine now.

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If you’re still using an original GBA and want to use an internal light without having to buy a GBA SP, the innovative solderless Halo Light is probably what you’re looking for! What a nifty idea!

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This morning it was so windy at my house I could barely walk out to my car without being blown over.

When I got to work there was no wind at all! The air is totally still here.

LA is a big place.

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If you’re interested in unbiased up-to-the-minute coverage of the war, check out The Agonist. This one guy pulls news headlines from all over the place.

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According to UPS, my copy of Zelda should arrive tomorrow. I’m hoping it will rock. All the reviews say it’s good, and god knows it looks beautiful.

But then again, all the reviewers loved Zelda 64 and I thought that was the worst game in the series.

You know, now that I think about it, the Nintendo 64 really wasn’t that good! It only had a handful of good games, and the rest all seemed to have severe framerate problems. I’m glad that chapter of video game history is behind us!

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Yesterday I played hooky so that Tammy and I could go take care of some wedding stuff.

We had our tasting appointment at Ocean Trails at 2. That’s where you go and they serve you stuff, and then you decide which one you want your guests to have. We decided on a penne appetizer with a caprese salad. For the main course we’re undecided on the chicken stuffed with sun-dried tomatoes and roasted potatoes or roasted chicken with lemon and capers and mashed potatoes.

After that we ran over to an appointment with a florist in Redondo Beach. She seems pretty good, and can get Tammy exactly what she’s looking for for about $500 less than this other lady we’ve been talking to.

We also spent a fair amount of time looking for a Game Boy Advance SP in Platinum. They were nowhere to be found, though, and the guy at Toys R Us said they’re sold out everywhere. I didn’t want to waste any more time looking, so I ordered one off of Amazon last night.

I’m really tired today.

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My brother flew in for spring break this weekend. He and Tammy and I went out to dinner on Saturday at our ol’ favorite, Cafe Luna in Torrance.

Sunday afternoon I sprayed some Spectracide along a part of the hill behind our house. The hill is covered with ivy, but that ivy is getting choked out by weeds – big time! I wasn’t sure if the weed killer would kill the Ivy too, so I only sprayed a small patch of the hill. We’ll see some sort of results in the next few days…

Nintendo released the GBA SP over the weekend, and I almost forgot about it!

Last night I went to a Target and a Wal-Mart trying to find one. Wal-Mart was totally sold out, and Target had about 20 – but only in cobalt, not platinum. Cobalt is not a good color for these things, so I decided to wait.

I don’t think I got enough sleep last night. My eyelids are feeling heavy already and it’s only 11:30 in the morning!

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John Dvorak thinks that Apple may finally make the switch to Intel processors within the next year and a half.

“The story starts with January’s Intel sales conference. The surprise keynote speaker was Steve Jobs. And then, in the front row of Steve Jobs’s keynote address at the last Macworld Expo were top Intel executives. Shortly thereafter, Pixar announced that it would become an Intel shop. That was all step one. Step two is coming.”

Man, can you imagine that? I know rumors like this have been going around for years, but that would be an instant shot in the arm for Apple’s market share.

It’d be nice to be able to use OSX without having to pay out the ass for fancy hardware to do it on…but then how would Apple make any money?

We’ll see what happens.

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