Friday being Fred Meyer employee double-discount day, a few purchases were made:

• Dremel router table
• Dremel tile cutting kit
• Shanghai Noon on DVD
• Toshiba SD-3750 DVD player
• Dynasty Warriors 3 for PS2

I got the Dremel attachments so that I can finally finish the Mucha project I’ve been working on - I need to make a frame for the whole thing to fit in, and the router will do well for that. (The project is that I scanned a piece of Mucha work, separated it out into layers, put each layer on transparency, and I’m putting it all back together again but with about a half-inch space between each layer. That will give the piece some nice dimension while still retaining the original beauty. I saw something similar on our trip to Vegas.)

Shanghai Noon, well… that was just a fun movie, and for 20% off, I couldn’t not get it.

The Toshiba DVD player replaces our old Sony player, which I’ve had for like four or five years now. The Sony is a good player, but I think the sound is starting to go on it because the center channel fades in and out. I did a test on my amp, but it works fine, so I have to blame the DVD player. I moved the Sony into our bedroom (where the TV is mono) and put this new progressive-scan Toshiba in its place in the living room. It has all sorts of keen features like picture zoom, dialogue enhancing, and chapter scan, so I couldn’t pass it up. For the money, it seemed the best buy available. At least from Freddy’s.

Dynasty Warriors 3 is another story entirely.

As previously noted, I was in a dilemma on whether to get Dynasty Warriors 3 or Virtua Fighter 4 from Game Crazy with my store credit. Well, I made the decision to get DW3 so I could play cooperatively with my dad - father and son against the heathen masses, right?

So I went back to Game Crazy and they had already sold their copy of DW3. They didn’t have it used or new. Which fucking figures. So then I got all wigged out about it because I had built up my hopes on playing DW3 on Saturday with my dad, so I ended up getting nothing at all.

Friday night, thus, I decided to pick it up from Fred Meyer because there was a special “additional 10% off video games” coupon, so I got the thing new for 30% off, which is what it would have cost me used. (And Dad did come over on Saturday, and we did stomp several hundred asses.)

That actually worked out for the best because Saturday we were in Hollywood Video and I found these coupons for “20% off any used game” and “$2 additional trade-in value on any game” at Game Crazy. Hell, yeah. I went in today, traded in The Adventures of Cookie and Cream for $8 plus the $2 coupon (for a total of $10), and, with the 20% off coupon, I got Virtua Fighter 4 for $4. Not too shabby.

Why did I trade in Cookie and Cream? Poor planning, I think.

The original idea was to find a game that Jenn and I could play together cooperatively rather than fight against each other. Jenn doesn’t play PS2 very often, so with my additional practice I usually end up winning - not to be cocky, that’s just the truth. I saw Cookie and Cream and thought, “Problem solved! Here’s a game where we both have to work together to accomplish a common goal!” That was the idea anyway.

It turns out, there’s a pretty strict time limit in Cookie and Cream during which you have to get several semi-complex puzzles solved. When I solve puzzles, I see the answer and just go for it. It’s sort of like osmosis - I don’t know how I solved the puzzle, I just did. Common sense. For Jenn, she works through it like a math problem and wants to understand all the steps. (At least, that’s what I gather.) Which means that while we’re running under this time limit, I’m saying, “Hey, go jump over on that button!” And she’s more like, “Why do I need to do that?” Of course, if I take the time to explain the rationale behind it, we’ve run out of time, but if I don’t explain it, she won’t do what needs to be done.

The Plan: Play a cooperative game where we both work together and have fun together.

The Execution: I try to strangle Jenn with the controller cord while she tries to shove her controller up my ass.

That’s why I traded the game in. (Interestingly enough, Jenn asked me this morning, “Are you sure we’re not going to play that again?” Yeah, I’m sure. It just makes me hate you. And vice versa.)

In other news, I found a new beverage called Fuze that I’m liking. It’s sort of like Snapple, but it has more vitamins and stuff in it that’s good for you. Right now I’m drinking the “Grape & Aronia Punch” flavor. It’s pretty good, and I’m not usually one for grape stuff. I bought one of each flavor to try them all.