This past weekend was another full one.  Friday night was an old-school Gears party and a great time, as usual.  The chainsaw is still overpowered but what can you do.  Saturday was another painting day at the condo as we try and class up the joint for the new tenant.   It went pretty well and I was even able to get home in time to watch VT pull ahead in the ACC championship game — in HD on my new TV as well.  I told Christina later that might have been one of the best hours I’ve ever had.

Anyway, I then had to head out for my company’s (very early) Christmas party.  My company always does something a little different than most — we can get away with it since we’re so tiny — and this year we had a bowling outing and then dinner at McCormick and Schmick’s.  It was fun despite my worst bowling game ever — need to do Wii Bowling next year so I can show them up.

After dinner I was finally able to get in a co-op game of Left 4 Dead.  All I can say is that it lived up to my expectations.  Exceeded them.  Chris, Frank, Lucas, and I teamed up and played through the No Mercy level and I can honestly say I’ve played few games that were as non-stop intense as Left 4 Dead.  The forced co-op works as advertised;  You simply cannot wander off alone no matter how good you are because the zombies will overwhelm and kill you in less than a minute.  The game is extremely polished with a lot of attention to detail, plenty of humor, and just an all around well-made game.  The other highlight is that each play-through is completely different due to the “AI Director” who randomizes everything on the level and adjusts based on the current status of your progress.  Very cool concept and adds tons of replayability.

Sunday was a bit more tame as I met my sister Erin in Fredericksburg to swap the van for my Celica.  So very glad to have my Celica back — it might not be the fanciest car in the world but it suits me perfectly.  The evening was wrapped up with a birthday dinner for Christina’s grandmother.  Whew!

“What player would be the most annoyed on Valentines Day?”

Game night with my friends led to the above question during a round of Imaginiff.  We’ve been trying to have a regular get-together and it usually revolves around some combination of Cranium, Taboo, and what other board games we can come up.  In Imaginiff, each player picks the player they think the question most corresponds to and if you have the same answer as the majority, you score a point.  4 “Shawns” and 3 “Christinas” later, the above question illustrated the commonly held belief that I’m not a romantic.

I made a comment to Christina that despite what everyone thinks, I am certainly one of the more considerate “significant others” out there.  She didn’t disagree but made the comment that I’m probably the least romantic person — not she has a problem with that — and am not one to, for example, give flowers unsolicited.  I reminded her that I had done that at least once but I just didn’t want to spoil her.  :)

I continued that I just don’t want to give a gift without a reason.  Christina pointedly told me that being romantic means doing EXACTLY THAT: Giving gifts for no reason.  To which I responded: Doing things without reason leads to anarchy.  

Oh, and I won the game of Imagiff.

Today is the big day.  Either John McCain or Barack Obama (sorry 3rd parties) will become the next President of the United States.  As I said earlier, history will be made one way or another.

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Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut…

– Cady, Mean Girls

It seems to me that Halloween is less and less a holiday for kids.  While I personally am not the biggest fan of dressing up (probably due to my lack of creativity) it seems that Halloween parties for adults is a growing trend.  A trip to one of those temporary Halloween stores in the mall a few weeks ago seemed to reaffirm my impression.  A good 75% of the store was devoted to costumes for adults, with the vast majority of those being for girls looking to “slut” it up.  Not that I’m complaining…

You always yank the band-aid off.  If you try and do it slow and steady, it just makes it more painful and last longer.  Forest fires, while devastating, kill off unhealthy plants, nourish the soil, and let the forest grow back stronger and healthier.  I could come up with a hundred analogies but the point is - The same is true of the economy.  If you don’t remove the issues that caused the pain and instead prop up the bad business decisions with a handout of money without regulatory oversight to fix the issues, you’re rewarding bad business for causing the problems in the first place.  Nearly every economist who has any idea what’s going on in the business world — other than those in charge of the companies, of course — is against the idea of bailing out these companies.  Yet, the popular notion is to prop up these companies to “protect” the economy.

I’m not an economist… but I am married to one and I’m also one of those “elitists” that reads the excellent Economist.  Plus, I stayed at a Holiday Inn awhile ago.

Update: A few more links about the bailout.

• 7 Questions about the $700 billion dollar bailout
• Why Paulson is wrong
• Fed’s bailout plan met with skepticism out West

Like many urban localities, Fairfax County requires dog owners to cleanup after their dog in public areas. When you have a lot of dog owners in close proximity, you almost have to have a statute about cleaning up or otherwise it would be a minefield out there. Bagging their dogs poop isn’t exactly how most people envision dog ownership but it’s a small price to pay for the general good. Unless of course, you are one of my neighbors who bags it up… and then leaves the bags on the ground!

I guess if you wrap them in plastic, it really turns them into little dog presents for the neighbors to walk on.  In addition to completely missing the point about keeping the public areas clear, my neighbor is now helping destroy the environment by leaving plastic bags out.  Well done!

While there seems to be a Starbucks on every corner, there hadn’t been one on my immediate route to work until a few weeks ago.  This particular Starbucks is one of the in-grocery store stores but unlike the majority of these mini-Starbucks, this one has consistently created a quality White Chocolate Mocha.  Perhaps a bit too good as I got “busted” when I went in one morning with Christina and the barrista girls called me out: “Hey! How have you been?  You haven’t been here in a few days?  White Chocolate Mocha, right?”  After getting a wry grin from Christina, I explained to her that stopping here was perfect as I can also do a little grocery shopping for my day-to-day office groceries.  It’s certainly better than running across the street from my office to the overpriced 7-11.

Another Safeway nearby has a gas station attached to it that provides a discount for the “club-card” holders.  If I can get my on-the-commute Safeway to install a gas station as well, it would be the perfect grocery store.  As Christina told me this morning, I’ve turned into a Safeway groupie.

Ran over to Chipotle for lunch today.  Chipotle has been expanding all over the place and I have a feeling it’s starting to have a detrimental effect on their business.  I used to joke that I moved to Reston Town Center just because I could walk to the nearby Chipotle.  The food is good, service is fast, and the price is right.  That said, soon after I moved into my current house in Fairfax, they put a new Chipotle in nearby… but not, unfortunately, close enough to walk.  For whatever reason, the service at my new Chipotle is markedly slower than any other Chipotle I’ve ever visited.  I’ve spent 45 minutes waiting in what the same line would have taken 10-15 minutes max at the Reston Chipotle.  This doesn’t seem to be an isolated  aberration as they recently also put one across the street from my office — the one I went to this afternoon.  Unfortunately, the staff at this Chipotle seem to come from the same vein as the ones from my Fairfax Chipotle as the line moves at a snails pace.  I’m starting to suspect that there are a limited number of Chipotle people and they’ve now had to resort to the “B” teams to staff their new locations.

Last night, Christina and I had dinner with another couple, Andrew and Jen.  Andrew is best friends with Christina’s brother and is about to be deployed.  They had their wedding the weekend before ours and so it was, yes, yet another anniversary dinner!  It was great to see them though and I wish Andrew all the best when he goes overseas.

I already mentioned that I can’t believe two nations could fight a modern conflict using the incredibly powerful weapons in use today.  Just as amazing, and probably stupid, are the journalists who cover these conflicts.  They sit in the middle of a war zone and assume their journalist credentials will protect them from bullets and bombs.  While we are given an unprecedented view of battles on TV that is disturbingly captivating, I simply can’t imagine what makes these journalists go through what they do.