Last night was the AMA, the American Music Awards, and although I only watched a few minutes of it, I thought that it was extremely fast paced. Both Renée wondered how come the best female pop/rock singer was the first award to be announced. Matchbox 20 and Xtina didn’t really do that well, either. In my opinion, it was kind of enh.

The funniest part was for the “contemporary inspirational” section. First of all, they had to come up with some name to adequately describe the category without actually making reference to God. Stink. Well, the nominations were Avalon, Jars of Clay, and P.O.D.. Well, the winner turned out to be Avalon (to my surprise—I was thinking P.O.D.).

The members (three original, one new) came up and poured out their thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ (first of all) and their spouses, families, managers, etc. But the funniest part was what Jody McBrayer said right before they left the stage: “I know you guys don’t know who we are, but thanks anyway!”

Last night, Renée and I had over lots of people for the first annual (in Albuquerque) Christmas Vacation party over at the ol’ apartment. I felt like we lived the movie.

People started showing up at the merry hour of 7pm (not that any hour is any merrier than another, mind you), and we had lots of snackies and desserts to satisfy. We decided to start the movie about 7:45pm.

Renée stuck in the movie, and pressed play on the VCR, and promptly exclaimed, “What’s all this snow?” Turns out the tape was bad. Dog-gone it! We’d have 15 seconds of clarity and then 7 seconds of snow. All through the entire movie, had we watched it. We decided to head down to our neighborhood video store and rent the silly thang…

… only to find out that their completely out. Joash and I head back to the house to reveal our shameful news.

So, we call our neighborhood-friendly grocery store because we know they have movies for rent, and they indeed say that Christmas Vacation is in. Unfortunately, no one has an Albertson’s membership, so Joash and Mattskee jump in the car and head down there to sell their souls. Problem is, though, that they’re both from out-of-state and don’t qualify for membership.

“I’ll go get it!” chimes Charis, who runs out the door and drives down there as well. In a few minutes, we get a call from her on her cell phone saying that she can’t get an application either because her home telephone is her cell phone, and she can’t provide any other number. Dawg!

Plus, they didn’t really have it anyway. Don’t you hate it when people tell you they have something, and they really don’t?

So, I get on the phone and call two other Blockbusters. Finally, we find one with the movie, except the location of the store is halfway across town. But Charis, ever so valiantly, speeds (metaphorically) over there and grabs the tape, heads back to the apartment, and we pop in the movie, and (finally) we’re set.

Despite running commentary from one of us, it was a great evening. I still think my favorite quote is from the beginning: “Let’s burn dust. Eat my rubber.” That, and I think Chevy Chase deserves an Oscar for his performance in telling off his boss. Wow.

Last night, Renée and I decided to take on the task of sorting through all of our important papers, bills, etc., and put them where they belong—in the filing cabinet. We’re not quite finished yet, but we got through a bunch of that.

It made me realize, “Gosh, companies sure send out a lot of junk.” I mean, I’ve been keeping records since roughly 1997, and I have a whole filing cabinet full of … junk. Receipts that the government says that we should hold on to, “just in case,” but I really haven’t looked at a lot of it ever. Doing so last night also made me realize that the paper budget of some credit card companies, insurance companies, etc., must be extremely LARGE. You see, I just bought a ream of paper for my laser printer—250 sheets or something like that—for $4.97 at the store. Now consider that I probably have at least 250 pieces of paper from some companies, such as the bank. That’s $5 just spent on me. Multiply that by some 5 million people, and that’s $25 million. Just for invoices/receipts. Not to mention all the rest of the propagandathey put out.

Then, the show to top all shows came on TV—”The Bachelor: Women Tell All.” I sat invigorated to see the pettiness and childishness of many of these women and that one guy, whatever his name is, Eric? Anyway, I figure that in “reality”, if these people weren’t really placed in the limelight of stardom, they’re probably nice people. But the public eye has totally ruined my respect for them. It’s so sad.

Amusement bringeth mirtheth toeth theth souleth. It’s funeth to puteth eth-eth at the endeth of wordseth.

But not really that fun, I guess.

I went and finally, finally, finally saw Lord of the Rings this weekend after receiving ridicule after ridicule and blasphemy after blasphemy for waiting this long to see it the first time. I liked the movie. It was definitely not what I was expecting (I’d only heard words like “shire” and “gandalf” thrown around in the Big House for, oh, two years, but never really took the time to investigate what in the world they meant). I definitely thought the movie was visually stunning—both in special effects and just the sheer imagery of the scenery. Gosh! It was, indeed, a feast for the eyes. However, I think I must see it again to really gain a good grip on the story because I’m flopping around here trying to figure out what was going on. And three hours is great, don’t get me wrong—but when your rear falls asleep in padded seats, you need at least some sort of intermission.

Now I have a question. (Warning: little spoiler to the movie ahead. If you haven’t seen it yet, skip to the next paragraph.) If Gandalf is this awesome wizard as we definitely saw at the Tower, how come he doesn’t use his wizard skills along the quest? There seem to be several opportunities for him to aid his companions, yet he doesn’t seem to [be able to?]. For instance, wouldn’t it make sense for a wizard to have the ability to create fire (or better yet, a fire shield) to keep them warm during the snowy mountain trek?

You know, even when you have to spend your 17-month dating anniversary washing clothes, it doesn’t matter as long as you’re with the one that you adore so much.

(That just happens to be what I’m listening to at the moment.)

The cold is in full-bloom, complete with sniffles, lots of kleenex, an intermittent cough, and of course the wee sore throat. But stay strong, lad, for I will come through this one triumphant and victorious. I shall not be conquered. (A little melodramatic, sure).

Last night I had blackened shrimp in angel hair pasta for dinner, and goodness was it good. I saved some of it for lunch today, but, alas, I forgot it at home. Oh well—tomorrow’s lunch. Back to the greens, today, which is probably good since I’m fighting the cold.

In the book I’m reading, I read something from one of the characters that really struck me as a model for how I should live my life. He responded to his friend when asked about what the next step of their plan was, “God will reveal it. He shows me only what I need to know, when I need to know it.” What an excellent model to pattern my life after. I know that I try to know it all, all too often. That was a welcome wake-up call.

Words of wisdom from your favorite movie and mine, Spaceballs, “Evil will always triumph, because good … is … dumb.” Ah, what comforting words, eh?

It was indeed a busy weekend, something worthy of a smidge of exposition.

Saturday - Renée’s Birthday

Unfortunately, this turned out to be one of the longest days so far this year. It started rather abruptly with a phone call from my dad, informing me that we should get going on the car. Well, “get going on the car” means that we had to start our day of right with an emissions test and finish it off with a title transfer. It didn’t quite go that smoothly.

Fighting the woes of the hard drive blues and a missing CD, I got all my bills paid after a quick trip to the bank and then took off with dad. The test for emissions passed with flying colors, and then we went to the title transfer office. However, the auto insurance wasn’t yet in my name, so we had to go to my parents’ house to get me on the policy. By the time that that was finished, we had to rush off to a birthday luncheon for another friend, so we had no time to complete our task.

However, right after lunch we went back to the MVD office and waited for what seemed like forever, and I kept myself entertained by entertaining a little boy hiding behind the tall legs of his parents. Finally, we got everything finished and I got myself a brand new balloon license plate.

Unfortunately, I still had a ton of stuff to do in preparation of Wonderful’s birthday that evening. Unbeknownst to me, insurance stuff still wasn’t finished, so I had to go back to the parents’ house and get that sorted out, and did so much to my dismay, as the time was now much later than I desired. Stress built up; Mark’s attitude declined.

But, things got much better when I finally saw my gorgeous girlfriend that evening. We went out to Applebee’s for dinner and shared a scrumptious chocolate cake (which we just happened to receive for free, hehe), and then went to go blow our nickels at Hinkle Family Fun Center at the Nickel City arcade. And, wouldn’t you know it, the place was jumping! Every single other time I have ever been, I was the only in there. Not tonight, though. I guess that’s what you get for Saturday night.

When we returned to Renée’s apartment, I gave her some gifts and just enjoyed talking with one another. Hallelujah, thanks Lord!

Sunday - Super Bowl XXXVI

Oh yeah, baby. The Rams and the Patriots. An unexpected turn of events. Amazing game. Three TVs and one big-screen projector. Smokies. It was fantastic.

More fantastic was the fact that there was lots of food at my house and that there were tons of people there. In fact, our street was lined with cars from one stop sign to another, which is quite a considerable distance.

Unfortunately, I think I’ve got a mite of Renée’s cold. It’s not too bad yet, but I’m going to stock up on zinc when I go to the grocery store tonight.

So goes another weekend. Not necessarily relaxing, but a lot of fun. Can’t wait for the next one.

Now I can update this page much more frequently with small little tidbits. Since the front page displays posts from the past thirty days, I figure I don’t always have to have something totally incredible to post.

This morning, Bryan brought us breakfast burritos from the Frontier restaurant. Gosh, I haven’t had one of those since sometime last year, and man was it good to whet my taste buds with the succulence of that perfect combination of green chile, cheese, eggs, and hash browns.

Thanks to TJ’s suggestion, Renée and I watched Rat Race last night. My opinion: great movie. Definitely worth another viewing.

Oh yeah. It’s currently snowing heavily outside. The Gov’nah is ready to picked up, and just in the nick of time.