Busy weekend

On Friday afternoon Diane and I went to see Revenge of the Sith (second time for me.) Diane liked it, and I haven’t changed my mind. I still rolled my eyes over the “Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo” bit, but it’s a good flick there’s no denying. My parents arrived soon after we returned from the theater, and as she hadn’t seen them since December, Lauren has a grand time basking in the glow of their attention.

On Saturday we took a trip to the New Jersey State Aquarium (complete photo set here.) The aquarium had just re-opened after a major renovation. Supposedly they doubled the size of the place, but I didn’t notice much of a difference other than a section with a couple of hippos and a greatly enhanced gift shop. In many ways it looked like they rushed to get it open in time for Memorial Day weekend – and a good thing too as it became absolutely packed as the day wore on. When we were done we lunched at PF Chang’s, shopped around the “ultra-chic” Promenade at Sagemore, and then headed home.

Sunday I played in paintball in GPL event #2. Our group had so many players show up for this one that we were able to form a 7-man & two 5-man teams. My squad started out pretty rough, finishing with a draw in the first game and losing the next 3. We got our act together from that point on and finished strong, winning the last 4 games in a row. We missed the playoffs, but it became clear that we had the talent to compete once we had a little time to gel as a team. Team GXP (the team I played with in event #1) went on to finish 2nd overall in their division. Nice! A few pictures from the event can be found here.

Monday was all about conspicuous consumption. Taking advantage of the Memorial Day sales, I hit the Apple store, Best Buy, and CompUSA. Diane’s parents have been shopping around for a new computer for a long time, and they finally pulled the trigger on a new 17-inch Apple iMac G5. It’s the same one my brother and his wife got last year for Christmas. I also upgraded their memory to 1 gig, bought them a new printer and digital camera, so they should be good in the technology department for a while. Photos of the haul can be seen here.

Not to be left out, I purchased a Canon SD400 for myself. It’s a tiny 5 Megapixel camera that you can carry literally anywhere. Cameras aren’t much good if you don’t have them with you so I’ve been interested in getting a smaller camera for a long time. Next year I’ll probably buy a digital Nikon body (maybe a D70) to go with all the lenses I have lying about, but this one is going to be my main camera for awhile. Diane inherits my “old” Canon S40. It served me well…

Lastly, here’s some more info on the Yorkie Bar. Seems I’m not alone in finding it strange.