The strike is over!

I am delighted to announce that the negotiations between the Bloggers Guild of America (BGA) the Alliance of Web Log Producers (AWLP) have been successful and we have reached an agreement which I believe will be mutually beneficial. Both sides have made compromises so that this agreement could be reached as soon as possible, so that I might continue writing this blog for your enjoyment.

Obviously that is all a big fat lie. In truth, I got distracted by World of Warcraft.

So let's see. What's new? Well, there was Christmas. That was pretty cool. We actually only had two Christmas meal obligations this year and they both happened at our house, which was a new thing. We had a Christmas lunch thingie on the Saturday before Christmas with my mom, my brother Adam, his wife Tasha, and their daughter Mia. It went pretty smoothly. The next day we had our usual Christmas dinner with Debbie's family, but this time, due to some animosity amongst the extended family (long story), it was just her immediate family that attended.

And that left us to enjoy Christmas day at our own pace, which was nice. In years past, we've opened the gifts from Santa on Christmas morning, then we've had to get the kids dressed and out the door for some event or another. This year we all got to stay in our pajamas and play with toys all day long.

The kids got lots and lots of stuff. Debbie usually shops all year long and, I'm not sure how, but she manages to keep track of everything that she gets so that all the kids enjoy fair and equal representation come Christmas morning. The end result is that I'm usually just as surprised at the sight of the presents under the tree as the kids are. I'm left looking at the mountain of gifts, scratching my head, thinking Santa? Is it really you?

The big gift from me to Debbie was a mother's necklace. It's got three little gold kid figures, each representing one of our offspring. They each have a corresponding birthstone in the belly of the charm. It wasn't easy to find all of the pieces and they weren't cheap, but she's wanted that necklace for years. And she is a pretty good mom, so she deserved it.

Yours truly got the PS2 version of Guitar Hero III with two guitars, a badass new gaming keyboard, and a wireless router. Now I can browse the internet or play WoW anywhere in the house! I used to be pissed that The Jetsons promised that we'd have flying cars by now and the world didn't deliver, but the ability to play WoW while I'm on the can is even better!

I'm back in school now after a short break. I have no idea how, but I actually pulled a B out of that jackass macroeco-suck-ics class. I can honestly say that the class taught me two things: supply and demand are related (duh), and people should never study economics. Now I'm taking English 101, a history of Europe class, a geogrophy class, and something called Strategies for Academic Success, which is basically an intro to college class that is required by my school.

I met the requirements for a leadership certificate and I should receive the certificate in the spring. I can't wait. I'm gonna hang it on the wall of my office and it will give me license to boss people around. And if they give me any guff, I'll just point to Mr. Leadership Certificate and that'll be the end of it.

Work is just as annoying as usual. Got a new boss, which is pretty cool. She wants to start grooming me for her position, which means, for the time being, I have more responsibilities and more work, but interestingly, no more money. Funny how that works.

And then there's World of Warcraft. At one time I said I'd never pay a monthly fee to play a game, but after hearing Jason rave about it, I decided to take advantage of the free trial ... and he was never heard from again. I figured it up and, if you consider the number of games that I usually buy in a given year, it's more money than if I were just paying the monthly fee for WoW. And with the amount of time that WoW eats up, I don't have time to play other games anyway. Jason is on there with me and Adam is too, so we're able to coordinate on a lot of things in the game. Hell, even Debbie has been playing a bit. I've gone through a few characters, but right now I've got two active characters: a level 47 night elf druid named Nannar, and a level 10 undead priest named Yoreck.

OK, gotta go. All this talk about WoW makes me wanna play.

Macroeconomics is the devil

Here is a word of advice for anyone who is willing to listen. It's a simple thing, but it could very well save your life ... and your immortal soul. If you're ever meeting with an advisor from your college and you're asked if you would like to take a macroeconomics course, kill the advisor and flee. You'll have to remove the head or destroy the brain, but this is the only way to make sure they don't come back. Also, you'll probably want to burn the corpse just to make doubly sure. Only, make sure the smoke is contained so that it doesn't escape into the atmosphere. Otherwise rain clouds could be contaminated and then we would all have a plague on our hands.

When I signed up for this godforsaken class, I though it sounded interesting. "A study of how society's needs are satisfied with the limited resources available." That sounds like it could be interesting, right? Well, it's not. It sucks ass. If only I could go back in time to kick myself in the balls as a warning.

I'm sorry if you're an economist or if you're in to that whole thing, but come on. Do you really have to make a graph for everything?!? Some things can just be said. You don't have to graph every single damned thing.

And some of the shit that's in my textbook is just plain stupid. Here's an excerpt from the book: "a $10 bill will do when the price of an item is $10, but a $10 bill plus a $1 bill is needed when the item costs $11." I'd like to point out that this textbook costs, as of the writing of this blog entry, 109.85 U.S. dollars. And anyone who pays this amount in exchange for the book is paying for that excerpt. I would like my money back. Or at least the portion of what I paid that went toward stupid crap like that.

Luckily I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Not much longer until this semester is over now. And then I can put this whole terrible nightmare behind me.