davejenbarnes

My 360 is dead…temporarily. I am kind of in mourning, as I realize just how often I used the thing. For those of you without a 360, it is so much more than a gaming console. I watch DVD’s on it, I video chat with my homies, I browse the marketplace and download many things…come to think of it, the 360 is much like my beloved G5 PowerMac in terms of the way I use it. The title of this post is a verse from the Bible, and taking it out of context and relating it specifically to my situation, I’m convinced that the verse refers to all of the n00bs I have pwn’d in my recent online gaming exploits:

“You have seen the depth of their vengeance,
all their plots against me.”

Back in October, Jen, James and I got together with my brothers and their families up in Dallas to take some portraits of all of the kids. While up there, we had lunch at Freebirds on Beltline. Pete won a free Monster Burrito, and gave the card to me (there aren’t any Freebirds’es up in Oklahoma City, and we have one just a few miles away from our place). Anyhow, last night, we redeemed the free burrito, and it was delicious (hence, the title of this post). But one other significant event happened last night as well. Last night, for the first time, I witnessed someone purchasing a Super Monster Burrito. Never before have I seen a burrito of such magnitude. I was in awe. The guy making it must have used a dozen or so sheets of foil while wrapping it. Out of necessity, he handed it to the customer with two hands. I’m not sure whether the customer ordering the Super Monster was extra hungry, or if he just needed to feed his family of six for the week, but I have solved one of those questions that you ask yourself from time to time…”hmmm…I wonder if I could ever eat a Super Monster by myself”…Answer: No…decidedly…no.

Last night I was playing Rainbow Six: Vegas (Here’s my quickie review, “It’s a great game!”) on Xbox Live. None of my friends were playing, so I was just hopping onto Team Survival games because they tend to be one of the quicker game types. It was a 5 on 5 match, and about a minute into it, I was the last person left alive on my team, and the other team was at full strength, having suffered zero losses. Anyone who has played “online gaming” with me knows that one of my key strategies is hiding. So, I found myself a little corner of the basement behind some large crates, and I just sat there….waiting. One by one, the opposing team walked by my hiding place, only to find themselves dead from the barrage of my silenced assault rifle. When I had scored 3 kills, the opposing team actually tried using some strategy. One of the two remaining enemies started lobbing grenades to my hiding spot, and the other one came around to flank me when I was flushed out. Unfortunately for them, I had already moved from my corner to the opposite corner, and I was able to easily take out the flanker, much to the cheers of my fallen comrades. I then darted back to my original hiding place, just in time to catch the other guy (who, by this time, had run out of grenades) walking past me, allowing me to humiliate him by shooting him in the back. Post-game, my team celebrated wildly, while the others hurled expletives my way. My hands were literally shaking from the intensity of the moment, so I popped in Viva Piñata (Here’s my quickie review, “It’s a great looking game!”) to help calm my nerves.

Today, I think I may have discovered the most impatient person in the Austin area. Here’s how it went down. I leave the apartment at 5:30 in order to get to CPHS in time for our fall concert warm-up. When I pull up to the Spectrum/Parmer intersection, the light is red, so I wait as another car stops behind me. During the wait, I decide to look around a bit…to my left (the direction I will eventually be heading) there is a train crossing Parmer (backing up traffic almost all the way to Spectrum), and to my right, several hundred yards from the intersection, an Ambulance, siren-a-wailing-lights-a-flashin’, is fighting its way down Parmer through the train induced blockade. It is, of course, at this moment that the light in front of me turns green (normally a welcome and pleasant sight at this particular intersection). I decide to let the ambulance through without moving an inch from where I’ve been waiting for the past minute and a half. Suddenly, I hear the hey-[explitive]-the-light’s-been-green-for-more-than-two-seconds-so-get-a-move-on-it honk from the car behind me. I don’t budge. The ambulance passes. I turn left onto Parmer, and the car previously referred to as “behind me,” passes me and proceeds at ludicrous speeds into stand still traffic.

This display of impatience prompted my memory into remembering a book I once read in a REALife group called The Life You’ve Always Wanted. There was a large portion of the book devoted to patience. How to know if you are or are not patient…why do we need patience…how do we become more patient…that kinda thing. What stuck with me was the section on becoming more patient. The author didn’t just fill the pages with psycho-babble designed to make the reader feel good, he actually had practical ways of testing, and increasing your patience. He almost treated patience like a skill we learn and improve at, rather than something that some of us have, and others don’t. Here are a few of the practical excercises he mentioned (and maybe one or two that I made up) to help us grow our patience.

1. When checking out at the grocery store, find the line with the most people in it, and join that line.

2. When someone comes up behind you in the line, allow them to go ahead of you, no matter how many items they have.

3. Drive the posted speed limit, in the slow lane.

4. If someone in front of you is driving slower than you, slow down, instead of passing.

5. Wait behind other cars at a red light, instead of driving on the shoulder, to make a right turn.

I’m not professing to be a guru of patience. Quite the contrary. I work daily on my patience skills. Sometimes everything works out, sometimes everything explodes in my face. All the time, I am learning.

1. As I was walking to the car at 6:45 am, I was greeted by a cheerful and rather chubby looking armadillo.

2. As I was driving in the car, the first song I heard on 94.7 was Boulevard of Broken Dreams, which made me think back to Tim’s sermon about how people really are searching for someone to find them.

3. As I drove farther, I noticed that the moon was in a partial eclipse.

4. After Boulevard of Broken Dreams was over, JB and Sandy talked all about the Baylor/Nebraska game, and how Sandy’s girlfriend Trish couldn’t take her eyes off of the bear.

Man, it’s been a while since I last posted anything. So, let me sum up the past few months.

Fatherhood

All of the parenting entries pretty much sum up that topic from Jen’s point of view, but being a dad is nothing like being a mom. Here’s a few reasons why:

1. Thankfully, I am not designed with functional mammary glands (On a side note, I saw a commercial where a dad was shirtless and carrying his baby. The baby then latched on to the guy’s fatty pectorals and words appeared Sonic commercial style which read “need to lose some weight?”).

2. I work all day, somethimes on weekends, so I miss alot of the new and exciting things that James does during my work day.

3. I don’t get to cook as much. Allow me to explain: when I get home from work, all I want to do is play with James. This leaves very little time for me to prepare dinner like I used to. Jennifer has really stepped up and taken over much of the responsibility in this area to give me the most James-time.

Okay, so you get the idea. I love being a dad, but I have no where near the material to speak of that Jen does, so I’ll leave the rest of the parenting posts up to her.

Halo 2

Here’s something that’s quite strange. Halo 2 is a game that I purchased almost a year ago. I enjoy playing it more now, than I ever have in the past. Here’s a few reasons why (do you see the pattern yet?):

1. More Maps! Since my maptacular post, 5 more maps have been added! Backwash, Elongation, Gemini, Relic, and my new favorite map, Terminal.

2. The Banhammer! Cheating became rampant with the release of maps that resided on the easily hack-able Xbox Hard Drive. Matchmaking play became a frustrating and unenjoyable experience. Bungie, being fully aware of the problem, implemented an automated system that could detect many different forms of cheating and automatically ban the cheaters. Since then, I’ve had very few encounters with cheaters.

3. Teamwork! Since I basically play with the same chaps over an over, we’ve developed many strategies (some that work well, others that work well in theory, but never quite work in real life) and we’ve taken on different roles in our gameplay. I’m not saying we’re unstoppable, but I know that if I’m sniping, there’s someone watching my back to defend me, and vice-versa. I feel like I’ve actually achieved something when I work with my teammates, as opposed to just winning because I’m stinkin’ good.

Summary: Still playing Halo 2, and probably will be for a long time.

Other Games

I’ve purchased and rented a few games over the past few months. Here are a few:

1. Sid Meier’s Pirates — Absolutely fabulous game. It’s an incredible pirate simulator that lets you do everything from wooing the governer’s daughter in any one of the ports-o-call to waging all out war with a fleet of five battle frigates.

2. Burnout: Revenge — The next game in the Burnout series seemed to take a step backward, while taking several small steps to one side or the other. In previous Burnout games, all traffic was deadly, all the time. This game adds “traffic checking” (checking as in “I was playing hockey and body checking everyone!!!”) which in effect allows drivers to slam into traffic as long as it is going the same direction. This eliminates much of the tension of the older games, and makes good driving much less important. Track design is close to flawless, and each track is designed with takedowns in mind, whereas the previous games’ tracks were designed as race tracks.

Basically, even when I have other games, I always end up playing Halo 2 with my buddies.

Apple

Apple has been busy as of late. Here is another list of products that conforms to the pattern of this post:

1. iPod Nano — This replaces the iPod mini, and has been getting mixed reviews. The press loves it, and some consumers are complaining about their screen getting scratched up. My thoughts: the Nano’s plastic screen cover is made out of the same material that regular iPods’ screen covers are made out of. A similar sized scratch on the two respective ‘Pods will look proportionally huge on the Nano.

2. iPod — They still just call it an iPod, but now it plays video! When I first heard rumors about this, I thought to myself, “That sounds like an okay idea, but what the heck would I want to watch on an iPod?” Luckily, Apple was thinking the same thing (see #3)

3. iTunes 6.0 — You can now purchase TV shows, Music Videos, and several of Pixar’s animated shorts for $1.99 each. Here’s the really great part. You don’t have to just watch them on your iPod. When you download them, you can watch them on your computer (if you have your compy hooked up to your HDTV, you could watch them on TV). In my opinion, this is way cooler (and cheaper) than owning a season of your favorite TV show on DVD. The downsides: there aren’t any shows available that I’m interested in, and you can’t burn them onto a DVD if you wanted to.

Summary: I’m glad to see Apple continuing to push forward with great ideas and products that seem to speak to the masses. I hope they keep it up as the transition to Intel chips begins shortly.

Food

In order to use as many categories as possible, I’m going to mention this. Jen found a wicked awesome Blog. I’m hooked.

IMG_1927, uploaded by davejenbarnes.

I got a lot of stares in DC. Not the good kind that make you feel pretty or attractive or even complimented in a way - though it’s rare that someone would admit that they like those kind of stares. Nope. I got the stares of confusion. Where man, woman, and child alike staring are puzzled, and you can feel their curiosity.

David experienced it while trying to find an ATM in the Department of Commerce Building when a security guard was brave enough to question him. Of course, it didn’t help his explination when “the big camera” was not with him at the time. You know. The big camera that looks like it fits on the end of the one leg. So David proceeded to explain that this was, indeed, not a weapon and was instead a single leg of a tripod - named appropriately - a monopod. He then attached the little canon elph powershot s200 to the end of it and extended the leg to its full height to show the security guard how it worked. I can’t imagine how silly it must have felt to hold the little elph camera up on the end of the monopod for a security guard in the entrance to the Department of Commerce building in Washington DC that tiring day in June.

Sunday afternoons are usually uneventful for the two of us. We always go to church where we are each involved in a ministry. David plays trombone in the Worship Team and I work the first service in the Resource Center. The Resource Center is pretty cool. We sell all kinds of books and sermon series that particular groups in the church are going through together. It’s like having a Family Bookstore right there in the church. So cool. And I get to wear a spiffy name tag. I mean, this nametag is pretty darn nice. Sometimes after church we will get a bite to eat if the budget allows (today was a Subway day) and pick up some groceries, then come home and take a nap. Oh, the napping that can take place on a Sunday afternoon! Dave is getting in some serious nappage now with the nap on the couch.

Today is pretty normal. In fact, I would almost say that if I didn’t have a camera with me during the grocery store part of the day that I would not remember today being any different than most Sundays other than the fact that it is the kickoff-Sunday of the 40 Days of Purpose study that our church is doing in small groups. No, other than that… I wouldn’t remember this Sunday… But I did have a camera with me at the grocery store. Take a look at this:

H.E.B. Grocery has a mascot! FOR. CRYING. OUT. LOUD.

seriously

Look again… it’s a person dressed up as a SACK OF GROCERIES. What the heck? What is happening to the world where a grocery store has a mascot walking around scaring children?

Just an example of a company vying for children’s attention. Just like the Band Festivals sponsored by VISA… This is an outrage! These companies are trying to get children to recognize them . . . grow up with them . . . make a mental association with that particular store as being fun . . . all for the sake of making money in the future. What I saw today is a bit too much. Shopping for groceries is not supposed to be like going to a theme park! I guess it is now, at least at the new 1431 HEB in Cedar Park/Round Rock/North Austin.