Rorschach.net

http://www.retroblast.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=583

We rewarded ourselves for a hard days work packing by spending sunday afternoon with friends watching football and eating a fabulous meal that included a festive brain jello. It doesn’t feel like the weekend should be over, but it is. The guest room, hall closets, office and living room are all packed. The kitchen, bathrooms and garage are still left to do.

The new refridgerator has been purchased and will be delivered on Thursday. Paul spent a good deal of time reading up on what different models could do. In the end, we bought a Samsung Quatro which is to new to be reviewed yet so we’ll have to post what we think a few months for those who will follow.

It’s the end of another long work week. But rather than falling down on the sofa last night, commencing to drool on myself until sinking into a deep coma; Paul and I mustered strength from within and went out on the town.We met up with friends in Hillcrest and took a cab downtown to hear David Sederis speak. The almost two-hour show flew by as does time with someone who is such a wonderful story teller. Afterwards, we went to a little restaurant specializing in wine tasting and cheese plates and shared our own stories for a few hours. It was Halloween weekend and the costumed semi-adults were out already. Sometimes though, it’s hard to distinguish between a costume and a case of fashion sense run amuck. Adding to the confusing is the distinct possibility that I am no longer hip.

We must begin our packing in earnest today. On Wednesday, the move starts. The busy week left little time for stuffing our belongings into boxes so it’ll be a forced march through the weekend’s chore list today.

On house viewing number 21, we struck real estate gold.

The 3 bedroom 2 bath house was renovated by a lawyer who lived there for years until taking a job in LA and renting it for the past 3 years to a couple who was friends of his. The lawyer was into tile projects and was good at it. The house is tile wall-to-wall which is as great for having dog as wood floors. It is fully fenced all around and appears to be Roe proof. In face, the front yard is fenced as well so Roe can do laps around the house if he wants. We have a “bonus” room so I can set up sewing stuff again and not share with the guest room. There is a large island which will support Christmas cooking when the Tobia’s visit over the holidays and a gas stove for Paul. The living room was added on recently and the old living room / dinning room turned into a very large dinning room. As a result, the space has vaulted ceilings which are very rare here in SOCAL and will allow me to set up the Christmas tree without leaving the top section off.

There are 4 sets of French doors opening onto a wrap around patio so we’ll have excellent indoor/outdoor living and we’re 1 mile closer to the beach and paying $200 less per month than we are currently. We have to buy a fridge which is an extra cost but we’d need our own eventually anyway. And there’s no pool – but that’s pretty much the only negative. It’s the nicest house in the price range that we saw and Paul charmed the landlady so she canceled the rest of the open-houses. She called within 15 minutes of us leaving the walk-through and had us come back and we signed the application and left a deposit.

I have no pictures to post. There are so many trees that you can’t see the house from the road and the occupants are in the process of moving out while family is visiting for a funeral so it seemed inappropriate to be snapping pictures like a tourist while that was going on. We’ll get some when we sign the lease. Now to start packing!

Paul, Roe and I hopped in the car Saturday and took a driving tour of the city of San Diego. We looked at houses that fell into the following general categories. Some were just like what we have now and even in our same neighborhood. Those with a pool cost the same, those without cost less. A few we looked at were as close at 100 yards from the beach. Not less money and no pool but ocean side. There were some suprisingly nice ones near downtown that would save money in rent but cause more drive time for me and a few near the oh-so-hip Hillcrest area which would be an interesting life for a year. Of the 11, there are two definate possibilities which we hope to see inside without peeping through the window shades today.

We used the new Local Live map program by Microsoft. At risk of sounding like a commercial, the bird’s eye views you can look at have one-upped Google. According to Paul, they do fly-overs and do not use sattelite images. The car in the driveway when you check our house is mine.

We’re hoping that next year we’ll be moving again. Adam sent us this interesting article on the housing bubble. 8.5% here in San Diego where the median house price is $550,000 represents $46,750 reduction in the price of the house. We’ll watch and see.

We’ve got 8 weeks left in our current rental house. The search is on for a new home. We’re looking in the same area but possibly closer to the ocean (maybe even right on it) or perhaps a little cheaper (to save up faster for a house) but probably not both. It looks like the rental market is pretty good in our area right now. Tonight we’ll drive by a few potential places. Hopefully we’ll have lots of options and find something nice for the next year to two. We may even get lucky and have a week or two of overlap to move things in car loads at night instead of all on a frantic Thursday.

Defcon is the latest little game from Introversion, them what brought you Darwinia and Uplink. The game fits on a floppy disk (if you take out the music) and was made by 6 people. It’s globalthemonuclear war full-on WarGames style with vector graphics and white splotchy explosions. Nobody wins, but you may lose the least. Multiplayer available and many game options allows you to dig into the deep tactics behind the simple mechanics. Demo version is available and you can buy it online or through Steam (online as well) for less than $20.

I played with the demo on the flight back from Kansas this weekend. Fortunately I didn’t have any FBI or TSA waiting for me as I deplaned considering I spent two hours blowing up various continents with nuclear weapons.