We had vacation last week.  Mrs. NFB went back in on Wednesday and Thursday, I took the entire week.  We had THE LIST to accomplish while we were off.  I'm proud to say we made it most of the way through the list.  And still managed to have some fun along the way.

Mrs. NFB's garden is mostly ready.  I roto-tilled the hell out of it, fertilized with a general fertilizer, lightly tilled that in and then the rain set in and it never let up.  Before all that went down we spent two days cleaning up the yard, mowing, raking, hauling loads of branches and yard crap to the dump and setting up a compost heap for the light and fluffy stuff.

Once the rain set in we built and painted a new shelf for our DVDs and books that we finally installed yesterday morning.  We cleaned and scrubbed the house down, she baked lots of stuff and I tried to keep up with her dish output as she baked.

And then there was the fun stuff.  Going out to supper, hitting movies, some shopping, new family members. . .wait, NEW FAMILY MEMBERS!?

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So, since we were going to be on vacation and mostly hanging around the house, I filled the aquarium a couple weeks back and got a mild cycle started with regular ol' ammonia.  My plan was to special order some super tiny fish that could add some activity to the tank and since I'd be home I could just grab them, acclimate them, and get them in there as quick as possible.  The cycle went ridiculously fast.  My guess is that's because of the plants soaking up most of the nitrogen cycle before it ever makes its way to nitrate.  I'd been told that was possible, and I was happy with it because it allowed for fishy additions during my vacation.

Except, they never arrived.  Guaranteed overnight shipping, ordered Monday, they never showed up.

Friday I emailed the dude at the store and gave him a "whazzzzzzzzz uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup!?"  He said he never was notified by PayPal that the payment went through and it's a glitch with his payment system and blah blah blah what day next week do you want me to ship them to you?"

Um, no.  I won't have them shipped to me while I'm at work and they'd have to sit in the box all day while I sit at work worrying if they're going to stew in their own waste and die before I get them into a filtered environment again.

So, I cancelled.  Got my money back.  And decided to try locally.

I ended up with some Rasbora species that remains under an inch total length.  Six of them.  They're busy-bodies.  Busiest fish I've ever kept.  And they do nothing.  Just constantly moving.  Back and forth.  Bunching up for a while, then separating into smaller groups.  Just a constant flash of red and yellow-orange movement.

Within 24 hours they had begun mating.  There's now a small group of five eggs along the back aquarium wall.  No way to remove them without destroying them, so I guess I'll leave them in there and see what happens.  Apparently they liked their first meal of frozen baby brine shrimp thawed in tank water.  It wasn't long after that they went insane and started spawing like a group of spawny things.

Mrs. NFB on the way they gobbled down their next meal: "Sure, if I did nothing but had sex all day I'd be pretty hungry too."  No kidding!

Pictures once I get five minutes to unload the camera.

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So, we went to a few movies over our vacation.

Speed Racer - I've heard a lot of bad said about this movie by critics and general movie-goers both.  We went opening day.  Mrs. NFB's concession to me for me working on her garden while she was at work.  It's pretty much the polar opposite of the Matrix trilogy.  While those films were subdued, desaturated, and filled with grey and blue-green tones, Speed Racer is colorful, poppy, primary-brightness incarnate.  And yet, both give me the same basic vibe.  This is live action Anime.  I was never the world's biggest Speed Racer fan.  However, as a HUGE fan of weird-ass visuals, I had to see this movie.  What I ended up seeing was a terrific movie.  The race scenes are perhaps a touch too fast to keep track of at times, but outside of that it's just your basic fun-fest based loosely on the old cartoon.  There were a lot of really terrific lines and scenes.  But the most haunting scene of the entire movie to me is the finish of the final race.  Crossing the finish line with the car up on the front corner, then slamming down with the rubber dripping off the wheels just gave a perfect sense of the speed of the race, finishing the only way it could finish.

When telling AFKS how much I liked Speed Racer, his reaction was as expected.  "You still like girls, right?"  Dick.

I liked it a lot.  I'll probably pick up the DVD when it comes out.  It's just a whole lot of fun to watch.

Iron Man - Seen in a double-feature at the drive in with the next movie.  This movie was really, really good too.  However, I've heard so much bullshit praise for it that I have a hard time selling it like Speed Racer.  I liked it a lot, but don't feel it was some masterpiece of cinema.  Far too many people are saying it is.  What it is, is a terrific comic book movie, but it's still a comic book movie.  I definitely would see it again, just as I would Speed Racer.

Drillbit Taylor - The second in the double feature at the drive in.  I'd never purposefully set out to watch this movie.  It was OK, don't get me wrong.  It's not like it's as horrible as, say, 40 Year Old Virgin or anything like that.  There were moments where it almost became enjoyable.  But not enjoyable enough to make up for the very, VERY dead spots.  I think both Mrs. NFB and myself just don't understand modern comedy.  Someone want to let us know when funny makes a comeback?

Clerks - the series: Not a movie, but I watched it in two nights so it sort of added up to a single viewing in a movie-like way for me.  The first two episodes are PAINFULLY bad.  A moment of funny here or there pierced by uncomfortable dialog that just doesn't work.  Then there's the middle two episodes, where the funny starts to be brought, but there's still some kinks being worked out.  Then there's the last two episodes, the last one being absolutely SUPERB in making fun of itself, which is Kevin Smithism at its best.  Mrs. NFB hasn't watched this yet, but wants to.  My opinion is, I'll watch it again for the good bits, but it's not going to be become a staple of my late-night viewing like the Clerks movies.

Then we re-watched the Hills Have Eyes remake and Transformers at Mrs. NFB's insistence.  I like them both, but they both have the same effect on both of us.  The first half of each is boring to me, thrilling to Mrs. NFB, and the second half is boring to her, fun for me.  Meh.

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I walk in the door, catch up on email, see the boss promised people things while I was gone I won't be capable of doing for several weeks and set myself right back to, "yep, don't care."

So, all in all, it was a vacation well-spent.

Lots of diaries 'round here to catch up on.  So, laterz.