Florida

Well, I've finally gotten some sleep and I'm rested and ready to write about my trip!

I left Friday night to go to Florida and of course, I got stopped at the security gate, and my toothpaste was confiscated. The Colgate mafia is probably looking to bring down planes all over the country, and they can't be too careful, so my beautiful tube of toothpaste is now consigned to some level of airport hell.

On the plus side, my flight arrived early, and since I didn't check any bags, once I found my mom, we were able to walk right out and head for home! The Orlando airport is a lot easier to navigate than the Tampa airport, in my humble opinion, so I was feeling pretty good.

Although I was still pissed off about my toothpaste.

So we get home and I got to see BUSTER the wonder cat, who now weighs, I would say, a minimum of 20 pounds, and I bet he's pushing 25. For anyone who doesn't know, Buster was the cat I took in when I lived in Arkansas and since Michael's allergic, I decided he would move to Florida. And I have to say, of all the cats I COULD have rescued, Buster has been 150% personality and just a fantastic choice. We all just love him. Plus his two sisters, Bianca and Hermia, but I must confess, I did not see Bianca in 4 days with the exception of about 15 seconds where she gave me the eye and fled back under the bed. Hermia has become quite affectionate--she used to be the "hide under the bed cat" but now she's all purring and cuddles, which is nice. And my mom's new dog, Sidney, is just the most hilarious little dog. He's a chiuhuahua (however the hell you spell that) and he is Mr. Personality in a 4 pound package. yes, Mom has a 4 pound dog and a 25 pound cat. Go figure.

So anyway, Saturday dawned bright and clear, and we decided we'd spend the evening at the beach to go check out the space shuttle launch, but first a tour of the beach! So we went over to Mom's favorite IHOP and then went down to the beach.

Let me tell you something about Vero Beach.

For some reason, the waves come in to a point, and then they stop. And what happens is a big, 2 foot wall of sand builds up, and then there's a plunging cliff. But since it's made of sand, it's not particularly sturdy.

So we decide to shoot some video of me, in the ocean, in December. I give Mom the camera, walk down to this cliff and it crumbles beneath my feet and down I go and the waves are coming and the beach is full of jelly fish, and I get up and run into the oncoming water, and hop back out and yell to find out if mom got the footage, because there was a jelly fish swimming over my foot (how stupid are jelly fish? Every time I go to the beach, I see dozens of them washed up on shore. Can't they navigate?)

So I look up, and Mom's coming down the stairs and I'm trying to climb back up this cliff, which you guessed it, continues to crumble, and she's standing there, laughing, and I'm covered in sand, plus I'm wet, which is charming. (And the water was absolutely FREEZING) And Mom says she's not sure, she could only see herself in the camera. Hmmm. So we get back in the car, and I turn on the playback feature and discover that my mom has video taped her feet.

Oh, there's a bit of footage of me, from the waist up, but you can't tell really that I'm in the water, and then mom drops the camera to her side and films her feet.

It's a minor masterpiece. I may leave the thing in its entirety and post it on YouTube as is. An artistic view of my mother's feet, and not my own.

So we spent the rest of the day shopping for Christmas decorations and then Mom decides what she really needs is a new computer. Christmas is generally a good time to get a deal on a computer. So we go to Office Depot, where we disappoint the little old man who is the greeter, by not purchasing anything after he merrily points us in the direction of computers, and then go to Best Buy, where a very nice guy talks us almost into buying a computer there, but it doesn't come with a monitor that's flat and mom only has a small desk and the upgrade is a teensy bit more than she wanted to spend. But the General gives his blessing on that particular machine, so we tell him we'll be back if Circuit City has nothing better to offer.

So we go to Circuit City. And we find a machine that looks plausible--a bit cheaper than Best Buy, and a bit more bang for the buck. Plus for only $70, you can upgrade to a flat panel. So we're waiting, and 3 salesmen are wandering around helping ONE GUY, and ignoring us. And Mom's getting hot under the collar, all "I guess they don't like serving women" and all and I was getting a bit cheesed, but then this young guy comes over and asks if he can help us. Now, I'm telling you, this kid looks like he's all of about 10 years old. So we point to the computer we're thinking about (which also gets the general's approval) and ask about it, and the sign says it costs $349, and we tell him we want that, plus the $70 upgrade to the flat panel monitor. So he pulls all the stuff out of the shelves, and we go up to the cash register, and he scans it all in, and the bill comes to $813.

So our eyebrows shoot over our heads and we're kind of like, "Wait a minute, this sign says $349."

To his credit, even he appears a bit confused, so he hits a button on the register and unfurls a pile of register tape and starts making calculations on the paper, and during the five minutes he is figuring out the price of everything, he actually (I swear to God I am not making this up) stands there and counts on his fingers.

Well, I guess the Yankee in me starts getting a little uppity, because I was getting impatient and I grab the $349 sign and I ask him, "What about this price right here? Can you just tell us what we have to do to get this price?"

And he looks at me just as angry as he can and says, "Wait, I'm not finished yet" and grabs the sign out of my hand and starts counting all over.

I look at my mom and she looks at me, I just about lost it. I was laughing that silent laugh when your whole body shakes from the effort of not bursting out laughing. Her mouth dangled in disbelief and then she had to try and hold it in too.

So eventually, he finishes up his complex set of calculations, and shows us how to get the $349 price, sort of. There are 2 mail in rebates worth $240, which drops the price to $573. The $349 + $70 upgrade is $419, and the rest is apparently made up in various taxes and whatnot, although frankly this is never made quite clear.

Well, not surprisingly, Mom doesn't have $800 to drop on a computer, so we tell him "Thanks anyway" and head out.

We go back to her house in time to get a phone call from the General who has considered the situation and says "Don't buy the Circuit City computer, it's not good" after all. So we dodged a bullet.

Mom's friend Judy comes over, and they decide to go be nosy. The town where my mom lives is getting all built up, although for no apparent reason, since at the moment no one is moving in. There is a place nearby where they are building homes that "start" in the $400's, and the two of them have been dying to go check them out. So we go on over there.

The realtor was a snot, and while the model itself was beautiful, I'm not sure I would have bought one. Some of the tiles had fallen out of the tub, there were various small flaws in the construction that I think they should have been embarrassed to show the model with those flaws showing. So Mom and Judy are busy exclaiming over the decorating and I was sitting there kind of fuming about it, because frankly, their furniture was way nicer than ours and it's just for display and that really gets me pissed off that they can afford to buy nicer furniture than I can and their furniture is not ever going to be used for anything. So I decided that if a couple of bars of their fancy French milled soap happened to fall off their granite vanities and happened to land into my pocket, I wasn't going to do a thing about it, and that is precisely what happened.

So we got back in the car, and Mom and Judy were hashing it all out, and I just burst out, "Well ladies, we can't afford their house, but it looks like we can afford their soap" and handed each of them their own little souvenirs of the place. Mom almost drove off the road.

Saturday night we went down to the beach and watched the space shuttle take off. It was an amazing sight. We were about 60 miles or so south of Cape Canaveral, and it was night time, and it was windy and cloudy and we were hopeful that the launch would happen, but we couldn't sit around at home and wait, since we had a little bit of a drive to the beach to start with, so we sat in the car and listened to the NASA transmissions on the radio and then hit the beach. Wow. When the thing finally lifted off, what an amazing sight to see. All of a sudden, the northern sky lit up like a brigh orange sunrise, and then this flaming dart shot out of the middle of it. Unfortunately due to the cloud cover, we were only able to see it for about 15 seconds before it disappeared, but it was mesmerizing. Definitely cool. And I shot the footage on that, so you won't see Mom's feet. :-)

Oh, and we went back to Best Buy and bought the computer there, which in total, with a flat screen monitor, came to $510. And God bless Best Buy, the guys who work there are all gorgeous.

On Sunday, Mom had gotten us tickets to see "A Christmas Carol" on stage. We spent the day channeling our inner Kathy Bates, yelling "TOWANDA!" and pulling down all the crappy blinds and shades in the house and letting in the sunlight. We installed curtains, cleaned out the garage, decorated Christmas trees, put up lights, listened to Christmas music, and put up the new computer and changed all Mom's old passwords. All of this is helping Mom reclaim her life from Asswipe, and I was only too glad to be a part of the transformation. Particularly when I got to wield a hammer.

So, we drive to the school where "A Christmas Carol" is being held, and Mom all of a sudden stops dead in the parking lot and says, "Did you see that?" Nope. She backs up, and there is a huge crab skittering across the lot. He/she was definitely lost. So we parked and stood around it until it safely reached the grass, figuring that was the best it was going to do. It was really neat to see, though!

So, we were given seats up in the "stadium level" of this school's auditorium. It made me weep to see what a state of the art facility they had. If I'm ever a quadrillionaire, I'm totally refurbishing Clifton Fine's auditorium. This place was gorgeous. So we people watched for a while, and then this dude in a tweedy coat goes down to the front and says in the most condescending voice you can imagine, "Now what's the first rule of going to the theater? We must do what?" and everyone replies like a bunch of stupid apes, "Turn off our cell phones." I rolled my eyes. I couldn't believe this guy was going to get away with that. Then he says, "And remember, no pictures, and only record your memories in your mind."

Yup this guy was up for the Mark Twain Award.

So, OK, the show starts, and to tell you how great it was, the two old ladies behind us fell asleep.

It's not that it was bad. It just wasn't well written. The acting and singing and the sets were great. But there was no point to the way it was all put together. For instance, when Ebenezer and Belle break off their engagement, she says, "I release you from your obligation, Ebenezer" and then breaks into a five minute song about how he's broken her heart. I mean, dump him and leave. Or sing to him and then dump him.

Towards the end, when Ebenezer learns whose grave he is at, and his name flashes up on the tombstone, rather than dramatically cutting the lights with only the tombstone showing and the sound of his sobs, he breaks into a five minute song. It could have been one of the most dramatic scenes in the show, but it was ruined by some idiot's desire to have a song thrown in there. Now, don't get me wrong, I *love* musical theater, and I *love* "A Christmas Carol" but it just didn't gel well. The only times the singing was appropriate was when the Fezziwigs had their party (although, frankly, Mrs. Fezziwig's sole character trait appeared to be that she would wave her head in the air to cause her pigtails to waggle back and forth) and when the Cratchitts had their own celebration. But again, I certainly don't fault the cast, they sang the hell out of it. It was just not a great idea.

Monday and Tuesday were spent on more remodelling and decorating, and Tuesday also included a very healthy nap. Also on Monday, I was tremendously excited to go see Paula Deen do a book signing.

I had sent my mom to get a ticket after she found out that tickets were required. Now, the tickets were free, and all the signs said if you had a ticket, you could get two books signed. Two book per person maximum. No problem. I wanted one for myself and one for someone else. So Mom bought me a book there to get our ticket and then I went over to Borders and used my holiday savings and their 30% discount and got a second cookbook for 4 whole dollars. So we go over there and I told Mom we needed to go early, since I know how these things are, and we left home at 4:30 and got there at 5:00 and there was already a line. There was nowhere to sit, and they wouldn't let you inside for the signing--everyone had to wait outside in line. So I decide to go in and scope out the situation. No podium, no anything, just a table. So I was like "Well, I guess she won't be speaking." So I go outside and we're standing around and Mom's talking to the people in line, and she sends me around the back of the building to the strip mall to get some drinks while we're there. Now, I don't want to sound too crabby, but there was nothing back there so I had to cross the street to go to a nearby Panera. And it was a 5 lane highway, with no signals and no crosswalk. Fortunately, it was not very busy. But people are honking at me while I'm standing on the freakin' median. "Um, hello, I'm not moving, so just drive your car and leave me alone." It was ridiculous. All for 2 pepsis. hehe

So I get back and around 6:30, they start letting the line move into the store, we're wending our way around the shelves like the chutes at Disney World, and then this woman comes through to check tickets. She grabs my bag and tells me that since I have only one ticket, I can only get one book signed. I asked her "What do you mean? It says two books per person?" and she says, "No, you need a ticket per book" and storms off. Now, the people behind us didn't qualify, because they didn't buy the right books. So wound up that they had extra tickets and agreed to get my book signed for me. But it was just wrong.

So 7pm, and out comes Paula Deen and her husband, Michael and literally, you got 3 seconds with her. She said to me, "Hello, sweetheart" which I missed responding because I was trying to get my mom to take a picture, and then passed my book to her husband, and that was it. That was it. I stood in line for 2 freakin' hours to meet this woman and didn't get to talk to her. It was a complete waste of time. I was SO disappointed.

So next week I'm going to go meet Rachel Ray and it better be an improvement over that one, I must say! My mom said she would not go to a book signing again, and I was also disappointed about that, since as you know, I've been to many amazing book signings in the past year. I mean, even Alan Alda took time to talk with me and personalize my book, and there were definitely more people at that book signing than at Paula Deen's. But her goal was to be done with it in 2 hours, and it led me to wonder, "Why bother?" I mean, what a disappointment for fans. I wasn't a big fan of hers, but I do enjoy watching her show and she does make some recipes that I've used that have come out really well, and this left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. Oh well.

So now I'm back home and relaxing. Heading to Orange County today and I'm so excited to do some rural driving. :-) It's nice to know that the bunnies survived without me and it sounds like Judy, the General and Joe all had a lot of fun while I was away, so I'm glad it worked out--I was a bit nervous to be gone so long. :-)

Till next time.

I Oughta Work on the Help Desk

It's after midnight last night when I finally got home last night... I wanted to play with my grandbuns...

The house is dark, except for the porch lights, which the General thoughtfully put on...

I walk up to the door and I hear the computer... Yes, it's 12:15, the General has to be up by 4 and he's on the computer.

Ok, not my problem. I get inside, and flip on the switch for the hallway.

A lightbulb blows and we are plunged back into total darkness.

Ok, no problem. The General comes downstairs, absolutely sobbing.

"Honey, what's wrong?!"

"This has been the worst night!"

"Why? What happened?"

SNUFFLE SOB SOB SNUFFLE

"OH MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED!? DID SOMEONE DIE!? TALK TO ME!"

"Art cancelled for tomorrow and I had to get Little Anne to come get me and I have a training class and the computer diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiied" SOB SOB SOB

"Ok, ok, what's wrong with the computer?"

"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaave a viiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuusssssssssssssss"

"Ok, is it still useable?"

"Yes, but I don't know anyone here to help me and pop ups keep going off and I can't get them to stop and I don't know anyone here and AdAware shut down and IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan't fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiix iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit and it's been going on aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllll niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight." SOB SOB SOB

(Mind you this is all taking place in the dark)

"Ok, hold on a second, I'm just going to put on a light and I'll come take a look"

I flick the kitchen switch... Nothing. Hmmmm... That's strange.

Flick on the dining room light. Nothing, no light. Hmmmm... That's strange.

Microwave, oven, stove, fridge all operational... Flick on the outside lights. Nothing. Ok, must have tripped a breaker.

Go downstairs, fumble around while the fluorescents light up... Find "Overhead kitchen lights" breaker, and flip it. Go back upstairs.

Nothing, no light. The lights are dead.

"Ok, honey, we have a minor electrical issue here. There's no light inside or on the main floor."

"Well that's a real kick in the ass, when it rains it pours."

Sometimes there's nothing to do but sit down and laugh or cry when you get to that point... So I forced the General to go to bed, and said I would look into everything in the morning.

I went to work (gotta love those rural county days--I LOVE Orange County!!!) and when I got home, I called our neighbor Jack, my one true hero, to ask if he could recommend an electrician. He said he would be right over.

Well, the breaker marked "Furnace" turned out to be the breaker for the overhead lights, which came on like a charm. Apparently what happened was that when the bulb blew out in the light in the hallway, a wire broke and crossed another wire inside the bulb and caused a short.

Ok, so on to the great machine. I finally, after battling with it for quite some time, discovered that we'd been infected by W32.myzor.fk.fy and did a search on that. I followed the directions for the first suggested fix I came to, and with one call to my husband to find out how to launch "safe mode", I had the machine fixed myself... Granted, it took quite a while, but that was only because the scanning took a good chunk of time.

I highly, highly recommend http://remove-spy.blogspot.com if you run into a spyware, malware/trojan/virus/adware/backdoor situation you can't figure out. If I can make it work from their directions, ANY ONE can. Their directions allowed me to clear out what Symantec, Microsoft, and AdAware all missed.

I called the General with the good news, and he immediately decided I should be a help desk engineer! That might be pretty cool :)

Other Boredom Killers: Readin' and Gamin'

Besides running my Netflix membership into the ground, I've also been spending these few weeks reading and playing some new computer games... I thought I might as well write a few reviews of them as well!

Reading

1. I Love Everyone (And Other Atrocious Lies): True Tales of a Loudmouth Girl by Laurie Notaro. Not too long ago, I was book browsing and I picked up a copy of Laurie Notaro's book We Thought You'd Be Prettier. I found it fairly amusing, but my sister fell in love with Notaro. A girl in my book club had The Idiot Girl's Action Adventure Guide, which Judy read, and then Judy picked up this latest offering on one of her trips or something. There were 2 chapters that I found absolutely hysterical, out of a book 240 pages long. They are short essays on every day life, and I think my sister aspires to be Laurie Notaro when she grows up. I don't find her all that amusing--the stories are cute, I guess, in their way, but almost too over the top, in the way my sister can be a bit over the top. So with my own little Laurie Notaro running around, I guess I didn't really feel the need to read the real thing. The 2 chapters worth reading are the chapter about the Sims and the chapter about her trip to San Francisco, when her friend "swims with the fishes".

2. The Way They Were: Dealing With Your Parents' Divorce After a Lifetime of Marriage by Brooke Lea Foster. Anyone who has known me for even a while knows that my parents' divorce in 1999 was the sole event in my life that had the biggest single impact upon me. It was the first major event Michael suffered through with me... It's how I met Lara... It changed how I saw my parents, my family, myself. It affected everyone on both sides of my family, and my relationships and trust with people. Back when it first started, Lara and I were contacted by Brooke and interviewed for the book, as were a zillion other "Adult Kids of Divorce." I had forgotten all about it, until Lara emailed me to say the book had finally been published this year. (Congratulations, Brooke!) I got a copy and decided to read it, and I must say, it is the most informative book on the topic. Every single chapter, I had to put the book down. I was like, "Yup, I did that" or "Yup, I felt that way" or "That's right, I shouldn't have done that." or "That's exactly how it happened!" This book is rather topical, but if you're experiencing your parents' divorce after a lengthy marriage (mine were married 25 years!), this is the book for you. Ignore all those idiots who tell you it shouldn't bother you.

3. American Girls About Town by various American Women Authors. A collection of short stories by 17 American women authors, including Jennifer Weiner, one of my personal favorites. The stories range, and my interest in the stories really varied. I am still working my way through this one, but I've read several of them now and some are really quite good. I was actually not a fan of Weiner's story about some British woman who is duped into falling for an actor and then she dumps him when she finds out his famous... But some of the other stories were quite good. This was lent to me by a friend, and I'm glad I didn't buy it, but I'm glad I get to read it as well!

4. Naked Pictures of Famous People by Jon Stewart. If you buy this for no other reason, buy it for the chapter on the Kennedys. It is uproarious. Some of the other ones fell a bit flat (although I was also fairly impressed by the chapter on Princess Diana), but for the most part, a rather quick and really fun read.

5. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. Again, I haven't finished it yet, as I typically have 3 or 4 books going at a time. HOWEVER! I'm enjoying it a lot. I LOVE mystery novels and this one was included in the computer game of the same name that I bought last week to pass the time. It's quite compelling. The computer game turns out differently in the end, apparently, than does the novel, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out. Nonetheless, what I've read so far matches up quite well with how they designed the game. I like that. The basic plot is that a strange madman has invited 10 strangers to his island home for a weekend. It turns out they are all responsible in some way, shape, or form for someone having died in their past (and in some cases, more than one someone). They are then rubbed out, one by one, according to a nursery rhyme, until there are none left.

6. The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson. This book was OK. It was compelling enough, and kept moving along, but for me, there were too many parts of it that I just didn't like. This was a book club selection, and like any chick lit book with a depressing ending, yes, it made me cry. It didn't help that I read it the week I got hurt (so when Heather came up to sit with me, I had to shamefully hide my tears, lest she read it and think I was a big geek--she later confessed to tearing up herself!)... Anyway, the basic plot is that Olivia Hunt, wannabe film producer, discovers her Martha-Stewart-esque sister has leukemia, and while Olivia is off jet setting with Robin Williams and John Cleese (not sure how they got away with using real people in this book!) and making and breaking up with the love of her life approximately 25 times during the course of the novel, she writes letters about herself and her sister's fight for life and her best friend's battle with infertility. It's practically a Lifetime Made for TV movie.

I've also been faithfully reading Readers Digest, Real Simple, People, and Martha Stewart Living.

Gaming

1. Civilization IV: I am a longtime Civ fan. My dad bought it back when we were running Windows 3.X and Civilization was a brand new game and we thought it was the most compelling game ever. Not too long ago, I bought Civ 3 and Civ 3 Conquests (maybe 2 or 3 years ago) and I have been playing them ever since. Fantastic new options were introduced in Civ3, including the power of automation, so you didn't have to tell your workers to build roads and irrigation all the time, the ability to have your units automatically explore without you pushing the arrow keys till your fingers fell off, and the ability to delegate to the governor all city management tasks (and you could save it as a default setting so you didn't have to worry about any of the cities you were building, all of them would be run the same). The graphics and animation also kicked butt. The beauty of all this was that you then had time to strategize your world domination, and with 6 or 7 new ways to win, you really needed to get down to business.

Last Christmas, I found out about Civ4, but really wasn't all that interested, since I loved Civ3 so much. The major attraction of Civ4 seems to be that they have added the aspect of religion into the game. You now discover all the world religions, eastern and western, and can establish state religions. You also can establish a whole slew of new governing options. The automation is still there, the graphics and animation have been taken to the next level, but unfortunately they seem to have removed the ability to contact the governor. I also have not successfully figured out how to handle the religion question, so now I tend to have 5 or 6 different religions spread throughout my cities, which doesn't bother me per se, but it does seem to alarm my enemies (who, believe you me, don't need ANOTHER reason to hate my guts).

I have yet to complete an entire game, mainly because I'm trying to learn the ropes. But I did see in Best Buy they are selling Civ 3 complete in one set (I can't re-install my old game due to a crack in the CD), and I am seriously considering downgrading on this one. It's really not doing anything for me.

2. The Age of Mythology: Microsoft's answer to Civilization, the Age of Empires, has a Mythological counterpart, which Joe INSISTED I would love and must try out. So we downloaded the nearly 400 MB trial version (you gotta love high speed internet) and installed it. Joe swore he was going to teach me to play, but his teaching me seemed to involve him playing and not really explaining what he was doing and me sitting there staring at the screen. I tried playing a couple of times, and it does have some things about it that I liked (for instance, making the villagers perform specific tasks on the environment like cutting trees, gathering food, finding gold) and some things that annoyed the snot out of me (how the hell do you take over a settlement and build a new city?!). It was nice to try, but glad not to buy!

3. And Then There Were None: My favorite computer games are the mystery-strategy games. Back when I was running Windows 95, I had the most kick-ass collection of mystery/strategy/adventure games you can imagine (my personal favorites being Loom and Zork Grand Inquisitor. I played the oringinal Myst, but that damned water world with the elevators just about killed me, and so I bought Pyst isntead! I only managed to complete Myst with the help of an adventure guide.). So I am usually perusing shelves to find new things to tease my brain with. Unfortunately, I find that there is a real scarcity of good, meaty games with interesting puzzles and not a lot of blood and guts. Which is why I absolutely LOVED this game. Yes, OK, granted, it only took me 2 days to conclude it. And in the span of that game were 10 murders. But mainly you heard, "Oh, no! SO AND SO IS DEAD!" and that was the extent of it. The puzzles were not all that difficult, to be honest, but they did take a little bit of figuring out. The most annoying aspect of the game was that if you didn't perform one small step, you were genuinely stuck until you retraced all your steps and completed whatever you had to do. While you were in the house, that wasn't too bad, but once you were able to explore the island, it got to be quite time consuming. This game was a lot of fun and very interesting, and of course, as mentioned above, persuaded me to read my first Agatha Christie novel.

3. Restaurant Empire: While I gather the Restaurant Empire Empire is on its 3rd version, Target was selling the first one for 10 dollars, and since it sounded interesting enough, I picked it up. This game is pure strategy. You can either play the pick up version where you are given $500,000 and get to pick the city and build from the ground up or you can play the full blown tutorial version. I have been playing the tutorial, even though after the first round, the tutorial pretty well stops. In it, you are Armand, a young upstart chef out to start your own restauranting empire. Your uncle has recently retired from the business and has given you permission to take over his Parisian restaurant in hopes of seriously competing against evil conglomerate OmniFoods, which is hell bent on peppering Paris with low rent restaurants. You get to enter cooking competitions, decorate your restaurant your own way, and while I have only gotten into the 3rd or 4th round of play, I've gotten to feed the Godfather. The game can get a little bit boring at times. While the restaurant runs on automatic pilot, you're left to sit there and watch. You can intervene or change things at any time, which is handy since you do have customer complaints you need to address. And Uncle Michel is available if you get truly stuck. I'm enjoying, but I feel like I ought to be enjoying it more.

4. The Mystery of the Mummy: This is a Sherlock Holmes mystery game, and as the daughter of a Holmes devotee, I figured I would give this a whirl (plus, it was also on the Target $10 rack). The premise is simple enough: you are Sherlock Holmes, called to investigate the death of a famous Egyptologist whose daughter is either your cousin or is marrying your cousin (the details are escaping me right now). Joe and I played this one together, and while the puzzles are extremely simple, they are also extremely frustrating. I don't know if it was user-itis or if it was the game or the computer or what... (For instance, in the first puzzle, you have to enter the end dates into a wall safe in a specific order. Joe and I did so, but it wouldn't let us in. So we restarted the game and re-entered the dates and it worked fine.) Eventually we gave in and just got the walkthrough on line... We got to a certain point and got tired of it, and shut it down. The next morning, I opened it and played for a while, but eventually screwed up and blew up Sherlock Holmes. Losing never felt so good. There are 5 levels of play, and the main intent of the animators and artists seems to have been that they just wanted to make it as difficult as possible to find the little scraps of things you need to advance. For instance, they hide a dirty gray rag under a wine rack in the shadows and you have to find it... You can hunt and hunt for it, but eventually you wind up just moving your mouse all over until the arrow changes to a hand. Then you know you're onto something... I probably will finish it out of sheer tenacity...

So, there you go... more fun things to do inside on your butt when you have 6 weeks to kill. Enjoy!