My 3 day weekend is over, but my 5 day weekend is beginning tonight! It's such a weird feeling because I feel like I should be depressed since today is my first day back at work after the weekend, but then again tomorrow I'm off for the rest of the week for Christmas so I'm quite conflicted.

After work today, Marissa and I are driving up to Georgia to spend the weekend with her family. They will have a Christmas party at some point (I think Saturday). As I'm sure you're all well aware, my birthday is on Friday so I'm sure we'll go out to dinner. My pick will have to be El Ranchero since it's my favorite Mexican restaurant. Aside from that, I think we'll exchange Christmas presents on Christmas morning and possibly go to Christmas mass tomorrow night. Should be a nice weekend relaxing up there.

Yesterday my folks and sisters came into town for the day. They had a stopover in Port Canaveral on their cruise so we "celebrated" Hanukkah by doing a few things. First we drove to Orlando and I had a quick falafel lunch and then we went to Disney. My mom and sisters got manicures and pedicures while me and my dad went to Epcot for a few hours. My dad was so hellbent on going to Epcot and getting some German food that he bought a one day ticket for about $80 and only spent like 3 hours in the park. He was happy, so that's what mattered. Afterwards we went to Citricos at the Grand Floridian for dinner. I picked Citricos since my family is a fan of up-scale dining and I hit a home run with that pick since they were raving about it the rest of the night. Afterwards I drove them back to Cape Canaveral and dropped them off.

For Marissa and I's Hanukkah gift, my folks are chipping into buy us a 42" LCD tv. The issue is we couldn't buy it yesterday since we had no room in the car so we decided to buy it online. The problem with that is the stupid web site refuses to let me pick the TV up despite the fact there's like 20 TVs at the store. I can't just go to the store to buy it because I don't have my folks' credit card. I'm contemplating just going there and giving them the sob story and hope they'll take it but I doubt it. The reason I want to buy it today is I'm worried this particular deal won't be available when we return from Georgia. Decisions, decisions, decisions!

Why is there a light in the fridge but no light in the freezer? Why wouldn't I need a light to see things in the freezer? I'm fairly certain it's dark in there too.

Song of the Day: The LeeVees - How Do You Spell Channukkahh?

It's Friday!! I'm excited not just because it's the end of the work week but because after work today, there will be nothing between me and my cruise on Sunday! I'm excited to start my week long vacation. I've taken all of next week off from work for the cruise and for some post-cruise fun at Disney. I'm really looking forward to this cruise, a lot more so than my honeymoon cruise if only because the wedding was what I was focused on with that last cruise. Weather should be nice for the cruise and I think we're going to have a genuinely good time and this will be Marissa's first Disney cruise so I'm excited to show her everything on the ship.

Today at work we had some people from L.A. Fitness come in and talk to us about gym membership. They are having an open house tomorrow so I'd like to go there with Marissa for a workout since we it's our workout day anyway and their gym is way better than our dumb apartment complex gym. If we sign up is going to depend on how much, if any, work will be covering for the registration costs. I'd like to join a gym, but money is very tight so it's hard to say if we can afford it or not. While I'd much rather work out at a real gym, I'll settle for our crappy apartment gym since the price is free. While the L.A. Fitness people were here, they took our percentage of body fat and BMI and evidently I have 15% body fat (which is fine for my height and weight and age) but my BMI is off by like 2 or 3 points.

Since it is December and Hanukkah is right around the corner, here is a live version of one of my favorite songs by the LeeVees. Definietly listen for the part where the mom comes up to sing her part.

Song of the Day: The LeeVee's - At the timeshare (Live)

My weekend, as I expected, was quite slow. I didn't do a whole lot of anything and mostly relaxed and I enjoyed it. I'm really looking forward to a nice short week this week and I'm really looking forward to my cruise in just two weeks. It should be a good time all around and it will be a nice change of pace to get out from here.

No update on the rental car situation. I plan on checking prices again today but I think my hopes of a last minute sale on prices isn't going to happen, unfortunately. I just hate to pay like $40/day for a stupid basic economy class rental car, especially when I know next week the price will be about half that. Stupid supply and demand economy! Damn you Adam Smith!

Video of the day:

It's Friday and that means it's time for the weekend! This weekend ought to be a little slow since Marissa is working both Saturday and Sunday so I'll be doing much of nothing. It's fine with me because I have some new games to play and going out usually involves spending money but it will suck not having her around in the long run. When I'm by myself for such a long time, I usually lose my social graces because I'm not used to communicating with other humans. Alas, I'll find a way.

To be honest, part of me actually wants to get past this weekend soon because I'm really looking forward to flying up to Connecticut for Thanksgiving. While I'm not looking forward to flying, I am excited to seeing the family and having a lot of great food. I think it will be a very nice time so I'm hoping for this weekend to hurry up :)

Song of the Day: Fraggle Rock theme song

Wish I had something fun and interesting to write here of stories from the weekend but I really don't. After work on Friday, Marissa and I went to the Turf Club for dinner with Josh and Sarah and had a good meal there and saw the shuttle launch, which was nifty. We had bolder ambitions to see the night launch from a better spot but dinner took longer than we thought and we had to settle for the spot we found. It was still cool to see, but next time we ought to get a better spot.

Saturday we basically hung around the apartment and did little of nothing. We ran a few errands but mostly sat at home and were mostly bored. I can handle sitting at home and doing nothing but I know it bothers Marissa, yet there really is not much to do if you don't want to spend any money so it's a difficult situation to be in. Marissa worked on Sunday so I spent my afternoon trying to get Battlefield 2 to work, as I had lost the CD and the game refused to work without it. Let's just say I was successful despite not finding the CD.

The big issue before us now is what to do about Thanksgiving. Rental car prices are just absurd and we're trying to figure out something that will be reasonable for a car rental. I looked into taxis but that was a joke so we're back to looking for a car rental under $200 for the 4 days. The problem is we are renting for 4 days and a weekend rental is only 3 days and a week rental is 5 days so we're in this stupid spot where there are no good deals.

20 days until the Disney Cruise!