So, not only did Dallas manage to win game five by scoring the only goal of the game in overtime, the Stars have managed to shutout Vancouver in game six as well. This means there will be a game seven Monday night, and I will definitely be watching.

Also cause for celebration: Yesterday marked my first anniversary of being a homeowner. I will be enjoying this milestone with ever-constant, never-ending yard work. Tomorrow I’ll be weeding, adding soil to any areas that need a little pick me up, putting mulch in the front flowerbeds, and then sanding and priming a few rough areas of the exterior in hopes of deterring any termite swarms that might be in the neighborhood in the next few weeks.

You hear that termites?! My house is not going to be on the menu!!

The Stanley Cup playoffs are underway, and Dallas is barely managing to stay afloat. They might be eliminated if they don’t win against Vancouver in tonight’s game.

Dallas actually looked pretty promising in the beginning. The Stars and the Canucks are well matched on the ice. Team stats for the season were almost identical. Their first playoff game was a rough one. They went into quadruple overtime, but eventually the Canucks were able to score the winning goal. Dallas managed to win the second game and we were oh-so-proud of them. But the third game was disappointing … and apparently the third game is a big indicator as to who will eventually come out ahead. I personally don’t see the third game as a death knell for anyone … but the Stars may be believers, because after losing game three, they went on to lose game four.

So that leaves tonight’s game. I’m still pulling for the Stars, but I’m not sure I have the courage to tune in and watch it.

I apologize if this new color-scheme is hideous. It doesn’t look too horrible on my end, but my monitor’s color is a little skewed … so things always look more appealing here. This new look may not last long … I just needed a change from the red that has been stagnating from inattention for the past few months.

It’s true. I am back. Paul has been pestering me about my lack on posting for several weeks now. And now my mom has joined in on the nagging. The sad thing is I have no real reason not to have been updating. Nothing to show for my absence. I haven’t even been spending ridiculous amounts of time trying to finish off Final Fantasy XII. I haven’t touched it since about mid-February. I don’t know what it is, but something in the game seemed to change. There was a lengthy cutscene, and then I went after a few marks that completely outclassed my characters. I barely managed to scrape by with anyone left in my party alive. After that I just haven’t been motivated to pick up the controller to advance the story.

My lack of interest in gameplaying couldn’t come at a worse time. For my birthday (last month) I was given several games. Each of them require at least 40 hours or so of gameplay, and the way I play requires a lot more. I tend to get easily distracted while playing and frequently do dumb things that get my characters killed, or almost killed. For instance, I was only about 30 minutes or an hour into Twilight Princess when I started goofing around and almost got myself stung to death by bees. At least I was smart enough not to hit a chicken this time. I’m not sure I can count the number of times I was attacked by chickens in Ocarina of Time. It was a hard learned lesson, but I think I learned it well.

I also acquired a whole lot of books. I think books are the most likely culprits for my absence here. However, with the acquisition of these newest games it looks like the world is conspiring against me and my desire to read. I probably have enough unplayed games in my library to occupy me for the rest of the year, and possibly a month or two into next year. The sad thing is that even though I have enough to keep me busy without getting bored, it won’t stop me from buying at least two more games this year. And I’m not even going to attempt to quantify the number of books I’ll have at the end of the year.