For those who don't follow it, California has gotten more rain in the past two weeks than in the history of California combined.  As a result, we got a call today saying that construction has been delayed on our new place.  No new date has been set yet.  Blast!

Jamie and I spent about a week and a half down in Fallbrook over the holidays.  We did Christmas at the Siebers, Grandma Sieber's birthday the next day at the Wonders, and New Year's Eve at Thornton Winery.  I got a mixture of gift certificates and clothes, most of which were specially requested from Banana Republic.  In fact, here's a pic of us at New Year's, with me in some of said clothes.

For those of you who didn't get a Christmas card from us this year, or got one late, that's because Jamie was busy working on American Black Beauty, and I'm a Christmas card slacker.  I did eventually go out and find some that I really liked.  They were my second choice, but my first choice was ridiculously expensive.  Today, Jamie and I were doing some shopping at the Beverly Center, and we came across my first choice with the price slashed 75% off.  So, our Christmas cards are already purchased this year.  Expect to get them early!

What? It was two weeks ago?

These pictures might have been doctored, but this is hilarious.

The models at our new condo, Chatelaine, opened for a special event for owners on Saturday, so Jamie and I headed out to Playa Vista.  The lobby, waiting area, conference room, reception desk, and great room are all completed and furnished.  It looks awesome!  In the great room, there are a couple of couches, some tables and chairs, a fireplace, and a big flat-screen tv.  We didn't have time to go through all of the models, but we went through the Plan B, which is what ours is.  It was great to see it completed.  While the flooring choices for the model weren't our favorite, the appliances were in, and it was helpful to see what the rooms looked like once some stuff was added.  It's starting to become real now.  Our home presentation date is scheduled for March 8th, and we close on March 15th.  In anticipation, I've added a little countdown up in the header, just for funsies.

Jamie and I did a bunch of our Christmas shopping today.  We left Best Buy and headed down the escalator.  Coming through the doorway was none other than Topher Grace, whom I just mentioned in my Ocean's Twelve entry.  We kind of juked each other trying to figure out who would go left and who would go right.  This gave me the time I needed to decide whether I would actually try to start a conversation with him.  Once we had gotten out of each other's path, I started my conversation brilliantly with, “Do you know Steven Cooper?”  See, Cooper was best friends with a guy that Topher had roomed with in college.  Unfortunately, we couldn't remember the roommate's name, and Topher, though the name sounded familar, couldn't place Cooper.  Topher ended the conversation just as brilliantly as it had begun with, “Is Best Buy just right up here?”  Yup.

Oh, another thought, I don't typically feel sorry for celebrities who have to suffer the masses because of their fame, but I kind of felt bad for Topher knowing how freakishly long the line was that he was going to have to wait in at Best Buy, and how in that line they were selling his Win A Date With Tad Hamilton at a drastically reduced price.

We saw Ocean's Twelve this weekend.  I found it to be enjoyable, though maybe not as enjoyable as Jeff found it.  My favorite scene was the one with Topher Grace, which is all I'm going to say about that for now.  Before the movie, they played an ad from MPAA & RespectCopyrights.org.  They don't have the one I saw up on their site, but you can get the same idea from watching this ad.  It didn't strike me right away, but I realized the next day that they were trying to teach us in this 45 second ad that downloading or buying a pirated dvd is stealing, and stealing is wrong.  Then, we watched a two-hour movie which glorified stealing and never once intimated that stealing is wrong.  Now, I don't advocate downloading movies or buying pirated dvds, but I think that the people who don't want their movies stolen need to realized that they are the same people who have been teaching us through their movies that there's no such thing as right and wrong.  Am I right?

Number one on my wish list is that I want someone to start selling PCI CableCARDs.  For those who don't know what CableCARD is, it's a card that you can get from your cable company that slides into various 'digital-cable-ready' devices, and eliminates the need for a separate cable box.  Some TVs have this built in.  There are supposed to be some personal video recorders coming out with it soon.  But for me, I want to have an HTPC, which means that my computer needs to be able to work with this technology.  That's where the PCI part comes in.  Currently, no one is making this.  If they do, I will buy one.

UPDATE:  So I was thinking about this some more, and I realized that since the cable companies are the ones that have to supply the CableCARD, they aren't likely to supply one in PCI form.  So, what I really need is a PCI card that accepts a CableCARD provided by the cable company AND has a coax input that together will allow the computer to capture cable HD.

Oh, and here's Tony doing press at Big in '04.

I forgot that I actually took a picture of the Some'Mores bar that I blogged about earlier.

I stumbled across this blog in which the author puts up bad query letters that he has received.  In case you are like me, and didn't know what a query letter is, it's a letter that writers send to people to get them interested in reading and/or purchasing something they've written.  I can't remember if I found this via someone else's blog, or I'd give them credit.