The Browser Auto-Complete Game

I saw that Scalzi did this and it seemed intriguing so I decided to try it myself.  I am going to type each letter of the alphabet into my browser's address bar and see what website it tries to auto-complete to.

A:  Arcane Wordsmith, one of my favorite WoW blogs.

B: The Border House, for damn good reason. Because I'm the Lead Editor and Co-founder and it's basically the best website on the internet. ;)

C: Craigslist.  I scour Craigslist pretty regularly for Farm/Garden stuff and also for checking out furniture, art, and free stuff.

D: Apple Developer Site.  The URL is developer.apple.com, and it's where I go when I'm doing work and need to do some admin stuff for our devs.

E: Ebay.  I don't actually shop on Ebay often, but over the last few months I was looking to purchase a saddle and was checking ebay multiple times a day.

F: Facebook.  This is a no-brainer.

G: Google, naturally.

H: Huffington Post.  I do check the news there quite a bit, especially since it's liberal slanted.

I: iTunes Connect.  Another work related administrative site.

J: Jezebel.  Happy to see that me and Scalzi have this one in common ;)

K: Kotaku.  I read it frequently because I have friends who write there and I think it's made a turn for the better this year.

L: LinkedIn.  I check my messages there all the time to see if someone is trying to hire me.  They usually are, but not for anything remotely interesting or local.

M: Company Email.  It starts with mail.companyname.com, so that's naturally where it resolves.

N: Noxxic.  A quick 'cheat sheet' website for WoW strategies.  My nerd is showing.

O: Openraid.  It's a WoW website where people can connect and raid together, pretty neat concept.

P: Pivotal Tracker.  It's our project management software at work and it's highly recommended.

Q: Nothing except wow.joystiq.com.

R: Reddit, duh.

S: Steampowered.com.  I shop too much for games on Steam (and don't play many of them, whoops!)

T: Twitter.com.  I've been tweeting nonstop since 2007.

U: San Diego Union Tribune.  Local news, though they've recently been purchased and they suck now.

V: Virgin America, my airline of choice.

W: Wells Fargo, my bank.

X: Nothing.

Y: Yelp. I thought it would be YouTube, but I guess not.

Z: Zillow, because we've been house searching.

Kind of a fun little experiment. :)

Eight Characteristics of Boxers

In our household, the dogs pretty much run the show.  We have two Boxers: A 2 year old female and a 1 year old male, both altered.  Every day it's something new with these rascals -- they always keep life interesting and they're a lot of fun.  They're also a total pain in the ass every damn day.  When anyone asks when I'm going to have a kid my default response is "I have dogs".  If they've ever spent time with a Boxer, they understand what I'm talking about.

1. The Farting

Like any other dog with a squished face, there is no getting around a lot of farting.  And not just silent-but-deadlys, but farts that make real sounds that are all too reminiscent of human farts.  We've gone through over 5 different brands of food trying to find the one miracle remedy that will cure it all.  Alas, we gave up.  It's a pretty common occurrence to have the sound of a gassy Boxer interrupting a TV show or waking us up while we're trying to sleep.  Sometimes it's funny.  Usually it's just disgusting.

2. The Routine

Boxers are the epitome of a "routine dog".  Once they get used to eating at a certain time, they will move mountains to make sure they eat at that time every day. Give up any hopes of sleeping in, because they're up in the morning at the same time every day waiting to get breakfast.  And when they're ready to go to bed, they'll whine at you.  Or if the bedroom door is open, they'll just climb into bed and call it a night with or without you.

Oh hey, did you want to lay here?

3. The Personal Space

Don't expect to have any.  Boxers do this thing that Luke and I refer to as "lumping", where they become sacks of potatoes that are unmovable objects.  Krogan leans into you so hard that you fall over.  Echo drapes herself over my shoulders while I'm sitting on the couch, and she's 50 pounds.  Both of them lay on top of me while I'm trying to sleep.  There is no such thing as "too close" with Boxers.

4. The Snuggling

If you have more than one Boxer, be prepared for them to snuggle together in hopelessly adorable ways.  However, don't forget that more than one Boxer means double the farts. (See #1)  This is how they sucker you into obtaining as many Boxers as possible.  It's part of their scheme.

5. The Playing

Boxers have a unique style of playing.  Whether it's with another dog or with a carrot on the floor, Boxers pounce at everything.  They play like they've never played before.  They can't stop playing.  They sound like they're killing each other when they play by making the most horrific sounds.  This is another reason people get two -- because if they play with each other they might leave you the eff alone for a second.  It doesn't really work...two Boxers will just drive you nuts.  And pounce on your face.

6. The Snoring

Boxers sleep harder than any breed I've known.  When they're out, they're passed out for the long haul.  They play at 100 miles per hour and then crash extremely hard.  This is the only peaceful time you will ever have.

7. The Begging

The only thing in life that Boxers like more than sleeping and playing is eating.  They could eat 10 meals a day and then want dessert.  When a Boxer has it's eye on something you have, it is convinced that it can will it into its mouth simply by staring intently.  Expect the Boxer to sneak in the least stealthy way possible and get as close as can be to your food.  Resist the urge to give in, no matter how cute.

8. The Destruction

Don't leave anything unattended.   Boxers insist that every inanimate object is out to get them, from TV remotes to W-2s and even a Skyrim Prima guide.  If anything is important to you, it threatens the exclusivity of your love available for the Boxer.  A Boxer needs to make sure that it's the only thing that matters to you in the house. Therefore, anything you love must die.

Goodbye Skyrim guide, it was nice knowin' ya.

At the end of the day, Boxers will test you in every way imaginable.  They can be destructive, naughty in every way, loud, hot, obnoxious, frustrating.  But they're also the most awesome breed of dog because every day you will laugh.  They will snuggle and warm your heart when it needs warming.  They'll ruin your things and piss you off but then rest their head on your lap and give you nothing but love.  Boxers are the best. <3

Yet another offer accepted

After doing the home inspection on Appleton, we decided to pass on that house.  While we'll be sad about not having a pool, we decided that living in Normal Heights is way more our speed.  Luke agreed with me that we have the rest of our lives to live in a quiet suburban neighborhood, and that we should take advantage of living in a hopping urban area while we can.  Although, it's not the house on Felton that I linked earlier.  It's a new one, on 36th!  It's beautiful and cozy and cute all at the same time.  I never thought we'd own a house like this.



It was over our price range, but they came down halfway and we are getting what I think is a pretty good deal on it.  It's a little over a block from Adams Avenue, the street in Normal Heights with all of the cute little shops, antique stores, art studios, restaurants, coffee shops, even a comic store and a board games store!  I'm so excited about this place.  It might be at the top of our budget, but it needs literally no work for us to move in.  At least, as far as we know.  The home inspection could say something different, but it has a new roof and water heater.  And -- it as a full studio in the backyard with a full bathroom and kitchen!  It would be great to rent it to a friend so we could save a bit of money on our mortgage.

Today we went down and looked at it again just to make sure we were really happy with it before paying $500 for yet another home inspection.  This weekend is also the Adams Avenue Street Fair, and we spent a couple hours walking up and down looking at things.  I bought a comic book, a Hawaiian shaved ice drink, and we both got a t-shirt from a booth run by Luke's former coworker.  All in all, it was a fun day.

Pros and Cons

Do pros and cons lists every really end up working out to help anyone make a decision?  Let's see here.  Trying to decide between two houses.... I underlined the things I think are the most crucial.

Pros on Appleton:

- Pool in the backyard
- Large house (1500+ square feet)
- Rad bonus room/library thing
- Two car garage
- All new windows
- Closer to Luke's work

Cons on Appleton:

- No real driveway to park in
- Not a lot of grass for the dogs
- Price is high
- Needs a LOT of work (kitchen, both bathrooms, new flooring in some rooms, painting)
- In Clairemont, a neighborhood we don't love.
- Requires the 52 to quickly get to any freeways, not convenient to the 805 or the 5.

~*~*~*~*~

Pros on Felton:

- Charming house
- In the neighborhood we love, walkable to stuff
- House is already refinished, needs no work to move in.
- At the high list price, is $36,000 cheaper than Appleton.  At the low list price, is $66,000 cheaper than Appleton.
- We know the rental market in the area, and a $2200/month rent would be absolutely doable there.
- More yard space for the dogs
- Few blocks from the 805

Cons on Felton:

- Neighbor's house is run down, badly.
- House is small
- Old house built in 1929, potential problems?
- No furnace, uses space heaters.
- Further from Luke's work
- One bathroom

Funky funk.

Today is one of those days that I'm feeling in some kind of heavy funk for absolutely no reason whatsoever.  I'm not sure what it is, but I just have little motivation to do anything and I feel discouraged about everything. That probably means that I need more Lexapro or something.  My taking of it once every 4-5 days is probably not being very effective.

Still waiting to sign our contract for the house on Appleton; apparently it's held up at the seller who can't figure out how to do an online contract.  Technology is difficult and sometimes slower than doing things the traditional paper way.  Of course, while waiting, I find a house in the uptown neighborhood of SD (my favorite) that is cheap and looks adorable.  I'm kind of annoyed at how I can't fucking make up my mind about what my priorities are on buying a house.  I think the problem is that I don't really care for any areas in San Diego that aren't in the uptown neighborhoods (Hillcrest, University Heights, Mission Hills, North Park, Normal Heights, Kensington, South Park).  So I feel like this decision is so very 'final' and that scares the shit out of me.  What if we're miserable?  Luke seems to think all will be well as long as we have a pool in the backyard, but I'm not as convinced.  Don't get me wrong, I like the house on Appleton a lot...I just wish it wasn't in such a boring neighborhood.  I don't know whether I'd rather be in a rad walkable neighborhood with little space to call our own yet things to do surrounding me, or in a large house with less charm in a generic neighborhood.  These are decisions I didn't anticipate having to make any time soon, because we'd always just rent a house in the neighborhood we want to live in.

Offer Accepted!

Pardon the terrible picture, there weren't any good ones to choose from!

We offered just under asking price on this house last weekend on the first day it had been up on the market. The listing agent replied back and said that he already had 5 offers, and we were the lowest.  We increased our offer by $30,000 so that we could compete.  By that time, there were already 15+ offers on the place and we assumed we wouldn't get it.  On Monday and Tuesday of this week, the sellers were arguing back and forth and deciding between us and another buyer.  The other buyer had way more money for a down payment, so they ended up choosing them.  We were pretty sad and disheartened about it.

We were asked if we wanted to be the backup offer, and Luke said that he has a good feeling about the place because I always end up getting what I want.  Whenever I have my heart set on something, I end up getting it.  By a stroke of luck, our realtor called me this morning and said that the other buyer got laid off from work today and as a result, we're the next on the list.  I don't want to make light of anyone else's misfortunes, because what an awful scenario, but I am so thrilled that we get the chance to own this home.

Of course, we have been this far once already and we turned down that other house after the inspection.  Anything could still happen at this point.  But I'm feeling really optimistic about this place.

• The house is older (1957) but has been maintained really well.  There are many upgrades to be made (like the kitchen, yuck!) but it's a really nice blank slate to start with.
• There is this amazing addition of a back room with wood paneling on the walls that is the most perfect office ever.  It's basically screaming for floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and it looks out to the pool.
• The pool.  OH GOD THE POOL.  Really big in-ground pool in the back with a very nice concrete patio space.  It's going to be wonderful.
• The location is great.  The neighborhood is very 'homey' and it's close to Hwy 52 for quick access to the 5 or the  805/163/15.  
• It's over 1500 square feet, so it's lots of room.  4 bedrooms is nice because it means we can have a dog room, spare bedroom, master bedroom, and future-baby-room and then our office can be in that addition space.

Our inspection is next Wednesday and I'm crossing my fingers that everything goes well and the Appleton house will be ours! =D

DIY Halloween & Fall Wreath

I was having a bit of a bad day, so I decided to do something crafty.  I used to love making things and somehow fell out of the habit of doing so.  A quick trip to Michael's gave me everything I needed to make my own awesome Halloween wreath!

This is one of the easiest DIY projects ever.  If you can use a hot glue gun, you can make a wreath.  Michael's sells the wreath bases (called grapevine wreaths) in various sizes (I went with 18" but it's totally up to you) for under $10 each, and then what you put on it is up to your imagination!

Supplies:

Grapevine wreath in whatever size you wish
Ribbon
Silk flowers
Hot glue
Glue gun
Wire cutters (for the silk flowers)
Lace tablecloth (or fabric of your choice, this part is totally optional)
Various accessories (I picked a bird and some pumpkins).

I started out by wrapping the wreath in ribbon.  For an 18" wreath, I ended up using about half of one roll of ribbon.  I glued the beginning and end on with hot glue, but you could probably tie it as well.   Next, I cut the lace spiderweb tablecloth that I bought and I glued it on the back of the wreath.  You might not want to do this step, it makes the wreath not hollow in the middle and it's totally up to your taste.  I liked it though, as it provided a nice backdrop for my raven bird.

Next is the fun part -- start gluing things on!  I positioned all the flowers & leaves before gluing them on to make sure I liked how they looked, then I went crazy with pumpkins.  Lastly, I glued on the raven (which I'm sure Luke will think is creepy because he hates birds) and I think it was a great final touch to the whole thing!  The best part about working with hot glue is that it dries really quickly, so this project took less than an hour and I already have it hanging up on the front door.

Happiest Place on Earth

Yesterday we spent the day at Disneyland, and had a great time.  My feet are sore and I'm exhausted, but that doesn't leave a dent on the amazing experience we had.

It's my third time at Disneyland, and the other two trips were last year.  I'm a new-found Disneyland fan, a skeptic if you will.  I didn't understand why people had such a fascination with the theme park, figuring it was no better than a Six Flags or Busch Gardens, and that it would be cheesy and filled with annoying people and that the rides would be too tame.  I couldn't have been further from the truth.  The minute I walk into the park, I'm transformed into this wide-eyed and curious human being, whisked into this world where not a single detail has been overlooked and nothing is out of place.  Disney are absolutely the masters at creating immersive experiences where every single one of our senses are utilized to make for a whole world of fun.  If you are at all a fan of music, movies, or video games, you need to visit with an open mind.

The Pirates of the Caribbean ride manages to use animatronics without making them creepy or cheesy, and captures the sense of adventure that you feel when you watch the movies.  The Halloween makeover of the Haunted Mansion is themed with The Nightmare Before Christmas, which is one of my favorite movies.  It was absolutely breathtaking how they transformed the mansion into something completely different for Halloween, and I loved it.  Halloween is my favorite holiday, with Christmas in second place, so this was perfect.  The Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is one of my favorite rides because it's an old wooden coaster yet is still smooth and not jarring at all.  And World of Color is an experience that brings a tear to my eyes every time.

I will never grow tired of Disneyland. I've been three times and I haven't not seen even half of the attractions.  Next year I'm buying an annual pass and going as often as possible.  Luke also had a ton of fun and was even more skeptical than I was.  It's an inspiring experience for anyone who makes interactive media for a career or hobby, and we had an amazing time.

Sweltering

Today we went and checked out another set of four houses, and we found ourselves falling in love with another one.  We already have an offer on a house with a pool that is way under our budget and also in need of some love, but this one we found today fits squarely within our price range and is just a way better purchase for us.  I'm really hating the idea of losing this one, which means that if/when we do, I'm going to be devastated.  For someone who is an impulse purchaser like myself, this whole home buying thing really blows.

The one with the kidney shaped pool, obvi.

The house is an older home (50's) with a huge pool in the backyard.  It has a lot of space (over 1500 square feet) and has one of the coolest bonus rooms we've ever seen.  We have all sorts of ideas forming for DIY ideas and that is a recipe for disaster when we haven't signed our offer on the place yet.

The weather here has been hot as balls the last couple of days.  Like, record setting heat.  It's not okay.  I'm grateful for having window A/C units in two of ours rooms so that I can get some reprieve from the heat and not suffer too much.  I haven't ridden my horse all week long because of a combination of being busy as hell along with the scorching weather.  Tomorrow, we're going to Disneyland and it's going to be 90 degrees in Anaheim.  I am sort of dreading it, but also very excited because it's Luke's first trip there.

  

My friend Isaac is in town from San Francisco, and since he's in my top 5 favorite people in the world, we've had such a blast.  We've been clubbing the last two nights at the local gay bars, eaten some great food, had our own little Robyn dance party at our friend's apartment last night, and just generally bonded even more.  He told me last night that one of his favorite things about me is how confident I am and how comfortable I am in my own skin.  I was floored by his comment, but Luke validated the statement and agreed with him today.  It's taken me awhile to learn to just not give a fuck, but I'm happy that I'm there.  There is something about being secure in a relationship and really comfortable with where I am in my career that makes life pretty damn awesome.  There isn't anything I'd change right now.  And though I could stand to lose some weight, it doesn't get me down.  I'm comfortable with who I am, but not cocky.  When giving relationship advice to friends I've always said that I feel being comfortable and confident is the best way to make yourself attractive to potential partners.  It's worked for me anyway -- I've snagged myself a good one! ;)

Nope.

Well, we didn't get the house we put an offer on. We were the lowest offer and they decided to go with another offer without even counter-offering us.  Luke and I are trying hard not to get discouraged -- after all, we've only been doing this process for a month.  However, it's so frustrating because it feels like home prices are going up and we don't want to lose our awesome interest rate.  It feels like the perfect time to buy a house, yet nothing perfect is happening.  We're used to getting everything we want, when we want it.  This will take some damn adjustment.  But then again, there are people in our country getting the fucking bubonic plague from squirrels, so my life is pretty damn good.

Speaking of good, my boss asked me that question today where he wanted to know what my career aspirations are and where I want to go from here.  Typically, that is an easy question for me to answer.  "Up!" I would gleefully exclaim.  This was the first time, honestly, that I have felt completely and totally comfortable existing exactly the way I am.  I have a pretty sweet gig.  I'm the Studio Director at a company that makes iOS games, but I work from home.  It gives me wonderful autonomy to work when it makes the most sense for me, yet be available for my team at all hours.  I spend a whole shit ton of time talking to my dogs and wondering why they're not laughing at my jokes.  I don't get the fancy free catered lunches anymore, but I've traded it in for the freeing ability to wearing whatever the fuck I want all day long.  90 degrees out today?  Okay, I'll skip wearing a shirt entirely.  Don't feel like showering and making my hair look good this morning?  I don't.  These are luxuries I don't want to lose.

I have to admit that it's a strange feeling to be comfortable in my skin and with my career.  I think I'm doing what I'm skilled to do.  I'm enjoying the ride.  If I answered his question with 100% honesty, I'd tell him that my next stop is getting pregnant, quitting, and staying home to raise my future child.  I don't suspect that would be met with congratulations, and I feel like it's almost me "giving up" or losing all that ambition I once had.  I moved up really fast in my career, and I've rarely gotten to stop and think about what I want to be when I grow up.  I knew I wanted to become a Producer, but I so quickly skipped right through that experience and was promoted so fast that I never thought about where I want to go from here.  VP of Something-Or-Other, I guess.  The likelihood of nailing that kind of sweet deal while working remotely is pretty damn slim though.  Which is why I'm totally fine just being me.

I feel like society is constantly encouraging us to want more.  Through material things, whimsical dreams for ourselves, wistful jealousy of other people.  All of this is only spurred on by an obsession with sites like Facebook and Pinterest that show you just how goddamn perfect everyone else is but you.  The emphasis on possessions and DIY skills and any sort of display that shows how much more worldly you are than everyone else...it's sickening.  Yet, I find myself playing right along into it sometimes and wondering if the person I am on the internet is getting closer to or further from the human being I play in real life.

Herringbone and boring purple hair

I'm feeling in a slump today, so maybe writing here will be a bit cathartic for me.   Today was a rather emotional day.  I woke up early to head to our home inspection for the house I talked about, and immediately after walking in I just felt regret.  The house is beautiful on the outside and in a really nice neighborhood, but I couldn't stop thinking of how small the home was.  Imagining being in that house for over 5 years with Luke and I, three dogs, and a future baby....that all sounded too cramped and uncomfortable.  We went and looked at a couple more houses during the day, and one of them was beautiful and 300 square feet bigger.  I had the weirdest mixed emotions, because I knew it was a better buy for us.  For some reason, it made me feel emotional to cancel the offer/contract on the first house.  I knew it wasn't the right one, and I didn't want to keep it, but I felt like removing it from the list of potentials was losing an old friend.  It was odd.

The new house is nice though.  It's more of a "blank slate" yet still upgraded.  It has nice charm, hardwood floors, nice covered patio, and a big den space that will really come in handy.  I'm pretty excited about the possibility of getting this one, except we're competing with a few other people.  Offers will be reviewed tomorrow and they expect to finish negotiations by Wednesday.  We will see what happens....

On Saturday I spent like four hours browsing the web looking for hairstyles, trying to figure out what the fuck to do with my hair.  After all this saving of images, scouring over Pinterest and Tumblr, and Googling so hard my fingers hurt afterward, I ended up getting the same fucking hairstyle that I already had.  I'm contemplating shaving the other side so that I have a long mohawk, just to do something different.  I'm bored with my hair, despite it being bright fucking purple.  Odd.

Lately we've been pretty homebodied and not doing very much, so it was really damn nice to get out Saturday night to have dinner at a friend's house with a bunch of other game devs, then go out to a wonderful dinner last night at Herringbone in La Jolla with one of Luke's former coworkers and his wife.  This week, one of my best friends from SF is coming to visit, and we have a Disneyland trip planned for Sunday. I'm really excited to have a fun week, though I have a somewhat tedious business trip for tomorrow and the stress of hoping our offer is approved for the house is getting to me.  It's been hard to have motivation to do much of anything lately, so that really needs to do a 180.

In other news, I love my new horse, I forgot how much I like the vibe in Ocean Beach, I am really in love with our new Dyson vacuum, and my dogs are batshit insane.  I've been getting baby fever big time lately, I'm annoyed with conservative political posts on Facebook, I want to go to a sewing class so I can learn some useful crafty skills, I'm excited to paint our cabinets white in whatever house we end up buying, I'm reading a lot on my iPad lately and want one of those new fancy Kindles, and I'm kind of sick of just about everyone on Twitter. 

Luke has lost lots of weight and he's super adorbs and I'm slightly jealous yet not jealous enough to stop eating everything in sight on a regular basis.  So that's something.  

Finding a voice on the internet

In the real world, I'm pretty comfortable and confident with who I am.   I'm of the age now where I'm no longer struggling to "find myself" and I'm pretty set as far as life goes.  But on the internet, my god.  I'm like a walking contradiction.

It's not news to anyone that I have a lot of blogs.  Whenever I'm feeling interested in something, I want to start a blog about it.  When I'm playing WoW, I read tons of WoW blogs and need to start one.  When I am feeling particularly interested in the social game industry, I'll write about it on my domain name attached to my full name.  When I'm wanting to rant about sexism in video game culture, I'll head over to The Border House.  When I'm updating about my weight loss progress, I'll post to my exercise blog.  I have a couple other mostly-abandoned blogs focusing on riding horses and indie music.  And I have some freelance gigs on the side when I want to get paid for all this text.  I really fucking love to blog.  I've been blogging since I ever bought a computer, it's what got me a job in the game industry in the first place.

Other than The Border House, I don't have what I'd call a "successful" blog.  (And the success over there is attributed to a ton of people by the way, it's not a solo endeavor by any means).  You know, something where the comments are flourishing and I get a lot of traffic and people really care what I have to say.  I'm envious of some blogs on the internet.  I feel like I'm not funny enough to entertain people like on Autostraddle, I'm not intelligent enough to run a blog like Shakesville, I'm not good enough at writing to know what my voice is and manage to grow a following anymore.  I miss what I used to have on my gaming blog back in 2006-2007.  It was a real community, a camaraderie, a place that I was so excited to log into multiple times per day and speak my mind (and people enjoyed commenting there too).

I could do this at The Border House, but it has such a serious tone over there.  The posts that get real traction are the longwinded academic posts, and that's not me.  I don't know enough about feminist concepts, nor do I play enough games nowadays to really contribute in a huge capacity to the editorial output over there.  I mostly play a "behind the scenes" role, which is less exciting than being the one to sling words all over the place.

I don't know what I'm looking for.  I want to write about something, but I don't know what, and I don't know where.  I have this entrepreneurial spirit that's dying to come out, and I don't know where to concentrate my efforts.

This helps.  I like just typing on this blog and seeing what happens.

Offer accepted!

Our offer was accepted on the house!  This is a surreal moment in my life, because I never thought the day would come where I'd be buying a house in a San Diego zip code.  I am so fortunate because I'm sharing this experience with my soul mate.  I consider myself to be one of the luckiest women on the planet.

Next stop is wire transferring the escrow money over, which happens today.  We have our home inspection on Monday morning, which I'm sure the house will pass with flying colors.  Feel free to pinch me, because I'm definitely fucking dreaming.

Slice of Instagram Life

Resurrection

Holy shit, I'm back.

I just decided to dust this thing off and see if anyone is out there.  I have a lot of blogs, but none of them feel like the place to rant about whatever comes to mind.  I miss the days on LiveJournal where I'd speak my mind and there were people there to rant with me.  I don't really want all that crap tied with my real full name, which eliminates this blog as a possibility.  And I have more interests than just video games, which eliminates this one and this one.  So, that leaves Tango Bango.

Luke and I put an offer on a house today.  When we rolled up in our real estate agent's brand new Lexus out front, we were basically stunned.  We immediately assumed that this house was way over our budget and was incorrectly priced, but were shocked when we found out that it was well within our price range.  It's only a wee 1100 square feet, but it's been gutted and upgraded to the hilt.  There are beautiful dark laminate floors throughout, an upgraded kitchen with nice gas stove, 3 bedrooms, 2 beautifully upgraded bathrooms, a huge backyard with room for a future in-ground pool, and a droolworthy private backyard space with a built in stone BBQ.  It's a dream.

We already had an offer in on another place, but ultimately we decided not to answer the counter offer and walk away.  The neighborhood wasn't as 'homey' in the other house, and we'd be paying the same amount for a much larger yet completely unfinished space.  We'd have a lot of expenditures if we tried to update the thing, and we didn't particularly want to end up being the nicest house on the block.

We anticipated many months of home searching because realtors in the area told us that it's a grueling fight in our price point because inventory is low.  I just hope we got lucky and found our place in the first month.  Although we always run the risk of some investor coming in with a cash offer and putting us out of the running.  We're optimistic though, and we know that there's always another house out there.  However, crossing my damn fingers about this house because it's perfect.