I'm proud to say that tonight, after Taco Tuesday, I reached the 75% mark on my career for Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4.  The goals I have left to accomplish are remain unfinished for one of two reasons: 1) They are too hard, or 2) I can't figure out what the goal is asking me to do.  Now, I'm fine with not completing 100% of a game, as good as it would feel to see that happen.  The way I see it, I now have a solid C in Tony Hawk Pro Skater.  I'm used to being an A student, so I may have to keep going until I hit 90%.  It sure would help me get there if I could clear up the goal of some of those goals.  Which brings me to the idea of 'cheats'.  I don't like the idea of cheating.  I failed more than one student as a result of cheating.  But, is looking up what I'm supposed to do really cheating?  Your thoughts?  In the meantime, I guess it's back to Gran Turismo for a while.

Update - I hit 80% today, still no cheat/research.  Have any of you played Pro Skater 4?  How far did you get?

Update Anew - 87% without guidance...how far can he go?!?

This coming weekend is a big weekend for the Siebers and the West Coast Segues.  Friday night, we're going to see Bill Cosby out at the Pechanga casino.  For those of you who have seen him before, you'll know how awesome this show is going to be.  I've been looking forward to it ever since I saw the movie Comedian.  And speaking of Comedian, we are getting to go to Vegas for two days after Christmas, where we will see Jerry Seinfeld perform, followed by Cirque du Soleil's Mystere.  Not immediately followed by.  I mean, Seinfeld's not opening for Mystere.  Anywho, it's going to be a very Vegas Christmas.

I forgot to mention that Jamie and I went to see “love actually” this weekend.  You've probably seen the commercials for it, and you are probably thinking it's a feel-good, family oriented Christmas season story, like I did.  As it turns out, I think it also could have been called “boobs actually”.  I don't want to knock it as a movie, just because it had boobs, but I will knock the marketing of it.  Man, that would have been an uncomfortable movie to be in with a kid or a parent.

So, I slept in today after taking Jamie to work.  When I finally pulled myself out of bed, I knew that in order to stay out of bed, I needed to head directly to the shower.  So, I did.  I was just enjoying the hot water, when I distinctly heard the sound of failing water pressure.  And sure enough, moments later, the water slowed to a trickle.  I waited for a couple minutes, hoping that it would come back on, but alas, nothing.  Fortunately, I wasn't all soaped or shampooed up.  I got out, dried off, and went outside to see if I could find somebody working on the water or something, to let them know that some of us were showering.  There was nobody to be found.  I came back in and tried the water at the kitchen sink.  It came rushing on.  So, the water's back on now, but I'm nervous about getting back in to finish my shower, because what if it shuts off again just as shampoo runs into my eyes?!?  That fear did not keep me from brushing my teeth, who were threatening to leave my mouth if I didn't do something about the breath situation.

Big news everybody!  We've got a new blogger amongst us.  One Brandon Wilson.  Enjoy!

Yesterday was Jamie's day off, and we had heard from Scott Coones that he was in town, so we met up with him and went to Lulu's for lunch.  We recognized the guy at the table next to us as a waiter from the Mexican food restaurant down the street called Marix.  We've eaten there three times, and he's been our waiter all three times.  He was there with another guy, and the waiter seemed to be embarrassed about the fact that they were on a date.  In West Hollywood...embarrassed about being gay.  Dude, maybe you're not gay.  Oops.

Anywho, later that night Tony & Martel came over for dinner.  And just as Jamie was about to serve a wonderful dinner of salmon, pasta, caesar salad and cheesebread, we learn that salmon makes Tony break out in hives.  Oops.

Well, we dealt with the situation and put chicken in Tony's caesar salad to make it a bit heartier.  We watched some TV, so that Tony could see if they were still running promos for his show.  The ratings haven't been what they had hoped for, in spite of the critical acclaim, so he's a bit nervous.  After they left, Jamie and I were doing dishes.  She washed, I dried.  I was drying our big salad bowl, when all of a sudden, it slipped out of my hands, hit the counter, and smashed into a million pieces, while also slicing four cuts into my forearm.  Oops.

Well, Jeff has his excuses, and I have mine.  I've tried to blog several times this week, but I have run into errors when attempting a post.  Which is a shame, because I revealed several internationally important secrets in some of those attempts.  Oh well, perhaps the next time I'm bored, I'll throw those out again.

What was the error, you may ask?  Well, there were two things that happened that confused the issue.  One, my hosting company upgraded to Windows Server 2003, which effectively reset the permissions on my directories, making it impossible to post new blogs.  Two, I tried installing the newest version of dasBlog.  This actually caused no problems but distracted me from the aforementioned problem, which was the true problem.

So, now that I'm back in business, I'll rewrite the brief blog that I can remember from Saturday.  It went something like this:

Well, I finally knew ahead of time about a lunar eclipse and set my alarm to remind me to go look at it.  However, the clouds were too thick in Fallbrook for us to see.  The one time it gets cloudy in California!  Did anybody else get a chance to see it?

Hey everybody, Tony's show Arrested Development premieres tomorrow night after Malcolm In the Middle on Fox.  Don't miss it!  Yes, I know it goes up against Alias, but we found a way to watch both.  I'm sure you can too.

I went to see Intolerable Cruelty tonight in the rain.  I shall cherish the rain, as I will not see it again for months, I'm sure.  Jamie was working until 10:30, so I got an employee pass from her to go see a movie for cheap ($6 is cheap here) at The Grove's Pacific Theatre.  The word on the street is that this theatre is one of the top 5 grossing movie theatres in the U.S. or maybe even the world.  As a result, I'm guessing that this theatre is somewhat trendsetting.  Perhaps some of you have already seen the innovation that I'm about to tell you about, in which case, I guess it's not such a big deal.  Anyway, they have just installed automated kiosks for concessions.  You walk up to a touch screen, select what you want, insert cash or swipe a credit card, pick up your receipt, and then head to the express pick up stand, where your order is waiting for you.  It was pretty awesome, and tons faster than the lines one usually waits in for concessions, while you are nervous that your movie has already started.  This is bound to mean more money for theatres, which means either they could lower prices (fat chance) or they may take better care of the theatre or they might just pocket it.  Anyway, good idea somebody.

Intolerable Cruelty.  It might surprise some of you that I waited so long to see this movie as it is a Cohen brother movie, and my favorite movie is Raising Arizona.  It might surprise others that I went to see it at all as it didn't exactly gather acclaim or box office dollars.  Well, I went tonight and the verdict is 6034 Conan O'Briens, which is equivalent to pretty darn good.  I liked the movie taken by itself quite a bit, and it definitely had the distinct flavor of a Cohen brother film, in spite of the marketing campaign that did not have that flavor.

Just a quick note to let you all know that we are safe and sound from the fires.  Don't let the name "Firestorm" give you the idea that fire is raining down from the sky.  "Ashstorm" might be more appropriate from that angle.  We have smelled the smoke, and the ash has fallen on us, and we saw some flames north of Los Feliz, but we aren't in harm's way.  Also, Jamie's parents' home is not in danger either, though Don's school at Camp Pendleton was closed at least part of this week.

Today's a big day here in the Coulter household.  Jamie got a new computer, a Sony Vaio W510G.  It's pretty awesome for what she'll be using it for.  It's got a widescreen, and the keyboard flips up to cover half the screen, at which point the display switches to a clock/CD player.  It's also got the capability of recording television and such, but as it's right next to our TV at the moment, and we've got TiVo, there's probably not much point in hooking that up just yet.  We also got a new phone.  It's 5.8 GHz.  I've found that I use my cell phone enough for business, that it's cheaper to start using our land line, but I didn't want to start using it until I got caller ID and a digital answering machine, which this phone has.  So, I'll be sending out a mass email some time soon with that phone number, in case you don't already have it.

Well, I didn't get to make it out to the PDC today, because I was getting pretty far behind on work.  I do plan to make it tomorrow, though.  At the moment, I'm waiting for Mark to get home from work, and so I've been reading other's blogs to pass the time.  I read Ben's blog, and he's talking a lot about skateboarding, so I thought I'd throw my two cents in.  I've gotten pretty good on the long board in the Sieber's driveway.  I have a hard time on narrow sidewalks, because it pulls to the right, so it's hard to get momentum going in the right direction before I get off the sidewalk.  In the virtual world, I'm much better.  I've also been playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4, and I just hit 50%.  I'm not sure how much more of it I'll play, as it is not relaxing like Gran Turismo; it's infuriating.  Plus, Jamie just bought me Tony Hawk Underground (T.H.U.G.), so I may have to move on to that.